Solitaria

For 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 they unwittingly bear witness to.

Mabel has been staying in the Golden Platethe most expensive building on the block, in an unnamed city in Brazilfor 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.

Eunice does the best that she canuneducated, 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.

Told through direct, agile and evocative prose,Solitariais 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.

“Solitariais a gem. Saidiya Hartman, author ofWayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Eliana Alves Cruz is a writer and journalist. Her debut novel,gua de Barrela, won theOliveira Silveira award, from Fundao Palmares, in 2015. She is also the author ofO crime do cais do Valongo(2018),Nada digo de ti, que em ti no Veja(2020), andA vestida: contos(2022), which won the Jabuti Award for Best Short Story.Solitariais her most recent novel.

• Publisher:Astra House (Aug 5, 2025)
• Language:English
• Hardcover:240 pages
• ISBN-13:9781662603327
• Item Weight:1.3 pounds
• Dimensions:8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• BISAC Categories: Literary Fiction, Popular Ficiton