Blood-Drenched Beard is the gripping, visceral English-language debut from Daniel Galera.
His father shoots himself, and all he’s left with is the old cattle dog and a vague desire for explanation. He loves swimming so he drifts south to Garopaba, a quiet little town on the Brazilian coast, where his grandfather disappeared in mysterious, possibly brutal, circumstances decades before.
There, in the midst of romantic flings and occasional trips, he comes to discover more than he could ever have imagined – not just about his grandfather, but also about himself.
“Daniel Galera is a multi-talented author, Blood-Drenched Beard is highly recommended for anyone who loves Brazil and its formidable nature; I enjoyed it tremendously. Dalit Lahav-Durst’s translation from the Portuguese is excellent.”
“Unrelenting fear, dreamy landscape descriptions, the main protagonist’s weirdness, and his relationship with nature cause the reader to be in a constant state of tension.”
“Blood Drenched Beard provides Israeli readers with a rare glimpse of modern and unfamiliar Brazil – white, cold, mysterious and dark.”
“Galera’s English-language debut, following his inclusion in Granta’s The Best of Young Brazilian Novelists in 2012, establishes him as a singular talent from whom we can expect much more in the future.”
“Blood-Drenched Beard,” Daniel Galera’s exploration of family, is part mystery, part travelogue and part sociology steeped in magical realism. No matter which part this gifted Brazilian stresses, his work feels tidal, like...
“Blood-Drenched Beard has at its center a fascinatingly headstrong character, one who swims perfectly but flounders on land, who strives for connection with his grandfather while cutting himself off from family —...
“But be patient with this book. Its subtle accretion of secrets—concerning both Garopaba and the troubled, enigmatic grandson—soon produces a magnetic aura of imminence and menace. Superstition, rumor and illusion filter into...
“Blood-Drenched Beard” has turned Brazilian author and translator Daniel Galera into a rising star of Latin American literature. In an interview to Time Out Tel Aviv he explains why he decided to...
“The exciting, action-packed culmination to this impressive novel manages to reveal what happened to Gaudério without answering away the eerie mysteries that surround his story. Like the fisherman bound to the giant...
“The writer who has evolved more than any other of his generation”
“Succeeds in creating an unsettling contrast between the beauty of this sleepy paradise and its sinister underbelly . . . an honest, disturbing portrait of a town that is, we discover, a...
“Outstandingly powerful”
“Coolly seductive . . . a tensely atmospheric novel whose glassy surface conceals a dangerous undertow. The silences in this Everytown are as corrosive as the salty air.”
“Mr. Galera is a gifted writer, and it is mostly a treat to watch him feel his way around this material. Like his narrator, he’s a lover as much as a fighter,...
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