The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao

Euridice is bright & ambitious. But this is Brazil in the 1940s, & society expects her to be a loving wife & mother. While Antenor is busy congratulating himself on his excellent catch, Euridice spends her humdrum days ironing his shirts and removing the lumps of onion from his food, dreaming of the success she could have made of herself – as a writer, dressmaker or culinary whizz – in another life.

Her free-spirited sister Guida, on the other hand, is the kind of person who was 'born knowing everything'. When she returns from her failed elopement with stories of heartbreak & loss, the lives of Euridice & her husband are thrown into confusion, with disastrous consequences.

The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao is a darkly comic debut, bursting with vibrant Brazilian spirit & unforgettable characters – a jubilant novel about the emancipation of women.

°°°

Martha Batalha studied journalism & literature in Brazil, working first as a reporter before starting her own publishing company. The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao is her first novel. Martha lives in Santa Monica, California, with her husband & two children.

Eric M. B. Becker is the recipient of a PEN Heim Award, a Fulbright Fellowship & a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2019, he earned honorable mention from the Aldo & Jeanne Scaglione Prize for his translation of Mia Couto’s Rain and Other Stories. He has translated works by, among others, the Brazilian writers Lygia Fagundes Telles & Fernanda Torres & the Angolan-Portuguese writer Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida.