Ana Paula Maia – författare

INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE SHORTLISTED 2026On land where enslaved people were once tortured and murdered, the state built a penal colony in the wilderness, where inmates could be rehabilitated, but never escape. Now, decades later, and having only succeeded in trapping men, not changing them for the better, its operations are winding down. But in the prison’s waning days, a new horror is unleashed: every full-moon night, the inmates are released, the warden is armed with rifles, and the hunt begins. Every man plans his escape, not knowing if his end will come at the hands of a familiar face, or from the unknown dangers beyond the prison walls. Ana Paula Maia has once again delivered a bracing vision of our potential for violence, and our collective failure to account for the consequences of our social and political action, or inaction. No crime is committed out of view for this novelist, and her raw, brutal power enlists us all as witness.

Saga of Brutes draws together three confronting and darkly comic stories: “Between Dog Fights and Hog Slaughter,” “The Dirty Work of Others,” and “carbo animalis,” published in one volume for the first time. Ana Paula Maia’s no-holds barred narrative pulls few punches, describing a shocking reality of the lives of the invisible workingmen who, like Atlas, are forced to carry society’s burdens. These heroes of vile circumstance—coal miners, firemen, garbage collectors, crematorium workers—are the soot-covered supermen who risk their lives performing difficult and dangerous work for others. But in the end, they, too, amount to nothing but carbo animalis—notwithstanding the impure relation of coal to diamonds. Despite their straightforwardness, Ana Paula Maia’s stories are filled with great insight and compassion for the lives of the men who live on the edge of a society built with their own sweat.

By the International Booker Prize Shortlisted Author of On Earth As It Is BeneathAnimals go mad and men die (accidentally and not) at a slaughterhouse in an impoverished, isolated corner of Brazil. In a landscape worthy of Cormac McCarthy, the river runs septic with blood. Edgar Wilson makes the sign of the cross on the forehead of a cow, then stuns it with a mallet. He does this over and over again, as the stun operator at Senhor Milo’s slaughterhouse: reliable, responsible, quietly dispatching cows and following orders, wherever that may take him. It’s important to calm the cows, especially now that they seem so unsettled: they have begun to run in panic into walls and over cliffs. Bronco Gil, the foreman, thinks it’s a jaguar or a wild boar. Edgar Wilson has other suspicions. But what is certain is that there is something in this desolate corner of Brazil driving men, and animals, to murder and madness.

By the International Booker Prize Shortlisted Author of On Earth As It Is BeneathAnimals go mad and men die (accidentally and not) at a slaughterhouse in an impoverished, isolated corner of Brazil. In a landscape worthy of Cormac McCarthy, the river runs septic with blood. Edgar Wilson makes the sign of the cross on the forehead of a cow, then stuns it with a mallet. He does this over and over again, as the stun operator at Senhor Milo’s slaughterhouse: reliable, responsible, quietly dispatching cows and following orders, wherever that may take him. It’s important to calm the cows, especially now that they seem so unsettled: they have begun to run in panic into walls and over cliffs. Bronco Gil, the foreman, thinks it’s a jaguar or a wild boar. Edgar Wilson has other suspicions. But what is certain is that there is something in this desolate corner of Brazil driving men, and animals, to murder and madness.

INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE SHORTLISTED 2026On land where enslaved people were once tortured and murdered, the state built a penal colony in the wilderness, where inmates could be rehabilitated, but never escape. Now, decades later, and having only succeeded in trapping men, not changing them for the better, its operations are winding down. But in the prison’s waning days, a new horror is unleashed: every full-moon night, the inmates are released, the warden is armed with rifles, and the hunt begins. Every man plans his escape, not knowing if his end will come at the hands of a familiar face, or from the unknown dangers beyond the prison walls. Ana Paula Maia has once again delivered a bracing vision of our potential for violence, and our collective failure to account for the consequences of our social and political action, or inaction. No crime is committed out of view for this novelist, and her raw, brutal power enlists us all as witness.

By the International Booker Prize Shortlisted Author of On Earth As It Is BeneathEdgar Wilson has a gruesome job, one he is entirely unsentimental about—he cleans up roadkill in rural Brazil. But one day vultures are circling in the woods, and he can’t not go see what they’re gathering for. What transpires is a quest—a miserable day-long journey—for a couple of poor working men who only want to acknowledge that everybody (and in this case, every literal body) has the right to be treated as more than just scrap or trash. Dead animals, defrocked priests, corpses abandoned in the woods, and a criminal outfit trafficking in body parts—Bury Your Dead is an exhortation, a road trip, a story of friendship, and a hymn to the small ways we can shape the world. Ana Paula Maia’s alchemy with the grimmest of ingredients makes this her more hopeful, generous novel yet.

By the International Booker Prize Shortlisted Author of On Earth As It Is BeneathEdgar Wilson has a gruesome job, one he is entirely unsentimental about—he cleans up roadkill in rural Brazil. But one day vultures are circling in the woods, and he can’t not go see what they’re gathering for. What transpires is a quest—a miserable day-long journey—for a couple of poor working men who only want to acknowledge that everybody (and in this case, every literal body) has the right to be treated as more than just scrap or trash. Dead animals, defrocked priests, corpses abandoned in the woods, and a criminal outfit trafficking in body parts—Bury Your Dead is an exhortation, a road trip, a story of friendship, and a hymn to the small ways we can shape the world. Ana Paula Maia’s alchemy with the grimmest of ingredients makes this her more hopeful, generous novel yet.

Carbón animales la historia de tres hombres vinculados por el fuego: el bombero Ernesto Wesley, su hermano Ronivon, incinerador de cadáveres, y Edgar Wilson, minero del carbón.Los tres malviven en un lugar que podría estar tanto en Brasil como en cualquier otra parte, siempre que sea tierra arrasada; durante una época que podría ser cualquiera, siempre que todo esté acabado o a punto de acabarse. En ese tiempo y lugar, la energía se obtiene del carbón mineral y los cadáveres, los oficios son violentos o alienantes y la vida es una serie de reacciones donde el futuro no tiene ningún papel.En ese paisaje desolador, Ana Paula Maia es capaz de construir una novela profundamente lírica y humana, un drama corregido por un humor incendiario y cargado de imágenes casi cinematográficas.

Desde que la epidemia se instaló, las rutas están desiertas, también las calles, las plazas y los parques. Las fronteras cerradas y el abastecimiento comprometido. La escasez comienza a dar lugar a la desesperación. En las últimas tres semanas, raramente es visto un automóvil circulando por esos lugares. Con la epidemia vino el aislamiento. Con el aislamiento, el silencio. El fin del mundo se aproxima. O al menos el fin de este mundo que habitamos.Un extraño virus hizo que las personas se vieran obligadas a no salir de sus hogares, pero Edgar Wilson no puede abandonar su trabajo: los animales muertos a los costados de la ruta son cada vez más y es su deber recolectarlos. Nada es como solía ser, el ambiente se vuelve cada vez más extraño y también los recorridos a los que Edgar Wilson está tan habituado. Hasta que un día se reencuentra con Bronco Gil y el exsacerdote Tomás, y una verdad devastadora, en la que están involucrados el Estado y las fuerzas militares, se les va a revelar.¿Pero es acaso el fin del mundo consecuencia de una voluntad divina o es el destino inevitable de la violencia ecológica, el fanatismo religioso, el autoritarismo y la ambición desmedida?Ana Paula Maia articula ambas opciones con maestría sin dar nunca nada por hecho y construye un relato trepidante con una profusión de imágenes y situaciones tan impactantes como inolvidables.

El fin del mundo que tanto se pronosticaba no sucedió. Sin embargo, fueron tiempos oscuros, en los que solo unos pocos se animaron a hacer lo que nadie podía. Edgar Wilson figura entre estos elegidos, pero ya está cansado de recorrer las rutas recolectando animales muertos.Cuando encuentra el cadáver de un payaso al costado del camino cree que la situación no da para más, y entonces le llega una propuesta inmejorable: Espartacus tiene una importante cantidad de búfalos salvajes que desea criar en el matadero de Milo. Edgar Wilson acepta volver a su viejo trabajo de aturdidor junto con Bronco Gil y el exsacerdote Tomás, pero las cosas se complican. El matadero de Milo ahora está regenteado por Rosario, su viuda, quien le alquiló la mitad del terreno al Circo de las Revelaciones, un macabro espectáculo que tiene como principal atracción a Azalea, una joven que predice el futuro.En esta zona compartida entre el matadero y el circo, Ana Paula Maia encuentra la ocasión perfecta para indagar en la relación entre lo humano y lo animal, la explotación y la precariedad de la vida, lo sobrenatural siempre en tensión con lo religioso.Búfalos salvajes se vuelve un libro vertiginoso y atrapante que nos desafía a enfrentar aquello que no vemos porque solo nos permitimos ver lo conocido.