Infinite Sadness

Antônio Xerxenesky was born in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1984, and is based in São Paulo. A writer and translator, he is the author of four novels, including F (2014), which was shortlisted for the São Paulo Literature Award and longlisted for the Prix Médicis Etranger in France, and An Infinite Sadness (originally published in 2021), winner of the São Paulo Prize for Literature in 2022 and finalist of the Jabuti Prize (2022). In 2015, Xerxenesky was writer-in-residence at the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program and at the Fondation Jan Michalski in 2017. He holds a PhD in Literary Theory from the University of São Paulo and has translated over 30 books from English and Spanish into Portuguese, including novels by Mario Levrero, Fernanda Melchor, Juan Villoro, George Orwell and Herman Melville.Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor and actual human translator. His work has won him the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the International Dublin Literary Award and been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, among many others. His translations for Charco Press include novels from Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru. He is the author of Catching Fire: A Translation Diary .

"The interplay between tension and distension, Eros and Thanatos, Jekyll and Hyde, present in his previous books, reaches his most sophisticated point: Xerxenesky measures the antidote as he administers the poison, building a subtle passage between one and the other, where the smallest dose can be fatal." —Estadão"The novel roils with ideas about the ethics and efficacy of various psychological treatments and the riddles of quantum physics….This case study of postwar melancholia is worth the reader’s time on the couch." —Publishers Weekly"Profound, humane, and intellectually brave, Xerxenesky’s English-language debut questions everything: morals, rationality, historical guilt, and whether we can ever outrun our own pervading sadness. A true marvel." —Mark Haber , author of LESSER RUINS"A mesmerizing novel, about the nature of evil, the sirens singing to us at sea, and that mysterious, shimmering light calling us forth to live." —Lila Azam Zanganeh , author of THE ENCHANTER"His densest, most harrowing work yet, a novel of ideas as limpid and frosty as the Swiss Alps that frame it." —Daniel Galera , author of TWENTY AFTER MIDNIGHT"A novel that puts us in a state of being on the brink: of faith, of love, and self-discovery." —Noemi Jaffe , author of WHAT ARE THE BLIND MEN DREAMING?"By what marvel has Antônio Xerxenesky managed to draw us into such an abundance of fundamental ideas, in the form of a thriller with human psychology at its centre?" —Espaces Latinos"Like all good novels, An Infinite Sadness provokes more than it brings answers, and stays alive in the mind of the reader." —Escotilha************Praise for Antônio XerxeneskyWinner of the São Paulo Prize for Literature 2022.Shortlisted for the Candango Prize.Longlisted for the Jabuti Prize.