An unforgettable story from one of Brazil's most accomplished and
original new voices, this is a profoundly moving portrait of a young
woman finding her way back into life.
From one of Granta's Best Young Brazilian Novelists comes a startling
and powerful story about returning to one's origins in order to move
forward.
In Rio de Janeiro, a woman suffering from a mysterious illness, which is
eroding her body and mind, decides to accept a challenge from her
grandfather: to take the key to the house where he grew up--in the
Turkish city of Smyrna--and open the door.
As she embarks on this pilgrimage, she begins to write of her progress.
The writing soon becomes an exploration of her family's legacy of
displacement in Europe, told in several narrative strands. Sifting
through family stories--her grandfather's migration from Turkey to
Brazil, her parents' exile in Portugal under the Brazilian military
dictatorship, her mother's death, and her own love affair with a violent
man--she traces her family's history in a journey to make sense of the
past and to understand her place in it.
With an epic sweep of time and place--traversing Brazil, Turkey, and
Portugal--this is a profoundly moving portrait of a young woman finding
her way back into life. Spare, heartfelt, and evocative, The House in
Smyrna is an unforgettable story from one of the most accomplished and
original new voices in Brazil.
