On Earth As It Is Beneath

Ana Paula Maia, Padma Viswanathan

Publisher: Charco Press
Publication Date: 12/08/2025 ISBN: 9781917260107 Category: Tag:
Paperback / Softback

Original price was: £11.99.Current price is: £10.79.

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Mr B's review

Deep in the Brazilian wilderness, a penal colony was built on desecrated land. Having long failed to rehabilitate the inmates, the state announces its closure, but few will ever leave alive. The warden releases a few men every night – they will earn their freedom if they can escape his rifle.  Rohan says: “Sharp, propulsive, and gritty. A beautiful gut-punch of a novel. Ana Paula Maia cements herself as one of the most exciting voices in South American literature.”

Description

On 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.

Publisher Review

“A fast-paced and impactful book (…) Ana Paula Maia treads her own path, and it’s a brutal one. All the better for us.” -Escotilha

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