Book, João Maria Matilde[LS]

Language: Brazilian Portuguese. In her new novel, Marcela Dantés, finalist author for the São Paulo and Jabuti 2021 awards, tells a sensitive story about family ties, madness, heredity and roots. Close to forty years old, Matilde, a strong and independent woman who thought she was the daughter of an unknown father, receives a phone call that disorganizes her life. The Portuguese João Maria is her father, he is already dead and left a will, which includes her, to be read with a scheduled date and time in a small village overseas. Leaving her boyfriend, Abel, and Beatriz, her mother who suffers from early-onset Alzheimer's, in Brazil, the protagonist, already in Portugal waiting for her will to be read, takes a dive as unexpected as it is lonely into her unknown past. Psychologically fragile, Matilde is forced to face her biggest fears, panic syndrome and some delusions that insist on appearing when she most needs lucidity. In the search for her origins, it is in her father's land that she finds a surprising, exciting and transformative version of herself and her story.