The Secret Life of a Poet - by Maicon Tenfen

We learned in Literature classes that the romantic poet Álvares de Azevedo died in 1852 at just twenty years and seven months old, but the truth is that we are unaware of an essential fact in history: the writer's death was a great and clumsy simulation. This is the starting point of The Secret Life of a Poet, a novel that seeks to recreate the biography of Álvares de Azevedo, both what he lived in São Paulo in the company of Bernardo Guimarães and Aureliano Lessa, and what he would live in Hamburg, Paris and London, cities in which he would try to restart his life of adventure. Thirty-two years later, Álvares de Azevedo anonymously returns to Brazil, revisits places and friends from his youth and decides to write the true story of his life. Through cryptic letters, he tries to convince Mr. BL Garnier, the biggest bookseller of the time, to publish his biography posthumously. Together with an incredulous Garnier, we will have access to the manuscript and unknown details of the poet's childhood, as well as his adult life in Europe, where he worked as a chimney sweep and became involved with a satanic sect. We will also learn about the seer and swindler Mary Child, the poet's great love, and everything they did to escape Cruz de Caravaca, a brotherhood of exorcists who intend to extirpate Satanism through murder. Finally, tired and lonely, the poet finds himself again with his vocation: he becomes a prolific author of plays aimed at the working classes of London. Before returning to Brazil, however, he needs to complete one last, painful mission.