{"product_id":"solitaria-isbn-9781662603327","title":"Solitaria","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eSolitaria \u003c\/i\u003eis a gem.” —Saidiya Hartman, author of \u003ci\u003eWayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eFor fans of Fernanda Melchor and Tove Ditlevsen, a raw, propulsive novel by an award-winning Afro-Brazillian novelist about a Black mother and daughter who work as live-in maids for a rich family in an unnamed Brazilian city, and the tragedy to which they unwittingly bear witness.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMabel has been staying in the Golden Plate—the most expensive building on the block, in an unnamed city in Brazil—for almost her entire life. Yet her presence there is merely tolerated: she inhabits a miniscule room with her mother, Eunice, who alongside Mabel provides round-the-clock attention and care for the wealthy family who lives there. As Mabel grows up, her dissatisfaction with the forced smallness of her life becomes difficult to bear, and she is driven to work toward new possibilities for herself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEunice does the best that she can—uneducated, and with a daughter and ailing mother both depending solely on her, her life is a series of limitations. She moves through the rooms of the penthouse suite in silent servitude, and though Mabel is ashamed of this invisibility act they've both perfected, the era of slavery is still fresh in the country's consciousness, and Eunice thinks it best not to dwell too hard on such things. But when tragedy strikes, and a little boy dies, Eunice must decide if she can face the indifference and injustices of the ruling class she has spent so long orbiting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTold through direct, agile and evocative prose, \u003ci\u003eSolitaria\u003c\/i\u003e is a liberation novel of the most rousing order. Through the book's awareness of space and whose presence is permissible, the world of the Golden Plate unfurls, and an unflinching portrait emerges of modern-day Brazil, its legacies of colonial violence haunting rooms across the country, both big and small.\"Cruz expertly crafts a coming-of-age novel that insists on valuing the unseen lives of people who serve others.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Becky Meloan, \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A taut and deeply felt tale of class tension . . . This bildungsroman has plenty of bite.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"A thoughtful and thought-provoking exploration of race and class for all collections.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eSara Martínez, \u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"A stunner. Centering on mother and daughter live-in maids for a wealthy Brazilian family, \u003ci\u003eSolitaria\u003c\/i\u003e offers a sharp perspective on race, class and colonialism. Spacious and patient, the book is quiet yet captivating.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMs. Magazine\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"[A] propulsive liberation novel.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eEva M. Baron, \u003ci\u003eThe Millions\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"By lending a narrative agency to the building’s architecture, Alves Cruz likewise restores agency to the human subject within those spaces. Thus, architecture is refigured from a symbol of systemic disempowerment to embody the possibility of collective experience.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Mathilde Hjertholm Nielsen, \u003ci\u003eAsymptote Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I’m always interested in books that offer a new perspective on complex issues, and\u003ci\u003e Solitaria \u003c\/i\u003edoes just that.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e—\u003cb\u003eMcKayla Coyle, \u003ci\u003eLit Hub\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eSolitaria \u003c\/i\u003egleams with straightforward prose up until the end of the story, where a more poetic and warm style takes hold . . . One of the best I’ve read this year.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Alexandra Martinez, Mojave Desert Tumbleweed Association\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eSolitaria\u003c\/i\u003e is a gem. The novel’s clean and elegant architecture—life organized and thwarted across a series of rooms—reveals the intimate experience of power and powerlessness. The social hierarchy of the racial order is articulated subtly in the spatial arrangements of servitude, all the little hidden rooms that sustain and support the world. The mother-daughter dyad at the center of the story details the intergenerational domination characteristic of the lives of those deemed disposable and at the same time offers the promise of breaking that hold and refusing servitude. I love that the rooms speak.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eSaidiya Hartman, author of \u003ci\u003eWayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In riveting, tight prose, Eliana Alves Cruz lays out her characters’ insurgent desires—ones we all possess—to live a good life against the external and internal forces that hold them back. The rare alchemy in \u003ci\u003eSolitaria\u003c\/i\u003e is not only that the characters speak, but so too the walls, the rooms, the Solitarias, that witness the lives within.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eDionne Brand, author of\u003ci\u003e Salvage\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eA Map to the Door of No Return\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \"\u003ci\u003eSolitaria\u003c\/i\u003e is a sharp, incisive book; one charged by precise and faithful insights about class, caste, and race, all beautifully woven within a coming-of-age tale that does not hide behind artifice or sentimentality. A work of deep quality, I absolutely loved reading it.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eCarvell Wallace, author of \u003ci\u003eAnother Word for Love\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Enthralling and deftly narrated, \u003ci\u003eSolitaria\u003c\/i\u003e reveals the perils and unseen captivity of lives lived inside the lives of others. The very people who are said to be “part of the family”—maids, nannies, doormen and their children—navigate the treacherous waters of their employers’ homes, where everything is breakable, including people. In the tiny spaces where their own humanity is meant to be hidden, the specter of servitude weighs on mothers and fathers, while sons and daughters learn how to free themselves, along with their families and communities. The way Eliana Alves Cruz manages to conjure up entire lives in such a short book is astonishing—as is the implacable social undercurrent of this novel. An essential novel about class and filiation.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eCatherine Leroux, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Future\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eBorn in Rio de Janeiro, Eliana Alves Cruz is a writer and journalist. Her debut novel, \u003ci\u003eÁgua de Barrela\u003c\/i\u003e, won the Oliveira Silveira award, from Fundação Palmares, in 2015. She is also the author of \u003ci\u003eO crime do cais do Valongo\u003c\/i\u003e (2018), \u003ci\u003eNada digo de ti, que em ti não Veja\u003c\/i\u003e (2020), and \u003ci\u003eA vestida: contos\u003c\/i\u003e (2022), which won the Jabuti Award for Best Short Story. \u003ci\u003eSolitaria\u003c\/i\u003e is her most recent novel.","brand":"Astra House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233562702053,"sku":"NP9781662603327","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781662603327.jpg?v=1767736889","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/solitaria-isbn-9781662603327","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}