"From one of Brazil's most important living writers, a powerful reflection on the effects of isolation and feelings of inadequacy in our time. Sick and abandoned by his wife and son, Oséias decides to go back to his hometown after twenty years away. During this time apart, he has heard about his family only through sporadic phone calls from his younger sister, Isabela. The shadow of the suicide of their sister Lígia, when she was fifteen, lingers over Oséias as he tries to reestablish contact with his siblings. Each of them is absorbed in their own world: Rosana and her obsession with fitness; Isabela and her struggle to survive; João Lúcio and his isolation. All of them are branded by loneliness, but most of all Oséias, who, misunderstood by his family members and old acquaintances, decides to put an end to his journey. Late Summer can be read as both the realistic story of a displaced man tortured by his unsuccessful attempt to redeem his past, and as a portrait of contemporary society, in which social classes have ruptured any form of dialogue between them, and people have become rogue planets whose paths cross occasionally, risking mutual destruction."-- Provided by publisher
Luiz Ruffato Book order
Luiz Ruffato is a Brazilian writer whose work delves into the complexities of urban life and the human psyche. His narratives often explore themes of memory, identity, and the search for meaning amidst the chaos of modern existence. Ruffato's prose is characterized by its lyrical quality and its ability to capture the unspoken emotions and subtle nuances of his characters' lives. He is recognized for his insightful portrayal of the Brazilian social landscape.






- 2021
- 2018
Inspired by his own family's struggles, as well as the broader sociopolitical and economic forces that shaped Brazil in the 1970s, Luiz Ruffato's epistolary novel, Unremembering Me, traces the story of the narrator's older brother, Celio, a young factory hand from Cataguases, Minas Gerais.
- 2014
There Were Many Horses
- 160 pages
- 6 hours of reading
There Were Many Horses is a groundbreaking work of contemporary Brazilian literature now available in English for the first time. It's May 9, 2000, and São Paulo is teeming with life. As Luiz Ruffato describes the scenes around him on this one typical day, he deciphers every minute and second of a metropolis marked by diversity--a mosaic of people from all over Brazil and the world that defines São Paulo's personality at the start of the twenty-first century. The city is more than just traffic jams, parks, and global financial maneuvering. It is alive, and every rat and dusty grocery truck informs its distinctive character. Winner of the Brazilian National Library's Machado de Assis Award and the APCA Award for best novel.