City of Brick and Shadow by Tim Wirkus
Heliopolis by James Scudamore
The Book of Rio by Katie Slade & Toni Marques
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
The Consul General’s Wife
Spilt Milk
City of God
From my Window
1808
Crime Thriller set in PUGLIA
Ten Great Books set in BRAZIL
9th February 2026
Ten great books set in Brazil. Brazil is a continental giant, the largest country in South America and the only one to speak Portuguese. It is defined by its staggering biodiversity, anchored by the Amazon Rainforest, which plays a critical role in global climate regulation. From the cascading to the rhythmic streets of Rio de Janeiro, the nation pulses with energy.
The culture is a vibrant mosaic of Indigenous, African, and European influences, most famously expressed through Samba, Carnival, and a deep-seated passion for football. As a major global economy, Brazil balances its rich natural heritage with bustling urban centres like São Paulo.
Here are ten of our favourite books set on the country.
City of Brick and Shadow by Tim Wirkus
Already struggling to keep their tiny congregation afloat, two Mormon missionaries stationed in the dangerous Latin American neighborhood of Vila Barbosa suspect the worst when Marco Aurelio, a man they recently baptised, disappears from a crowded street market. When the neighborhood’s corrupt police force shows no interest, Elder Toronto and Elder Schwartz decide to investigate Marco Aurelio’s disappearance themselves.
Breaking mission rule after mission rule, the elders doggedly pursue any clues that might lead them to their friend. As they interview the people who knew him – his short-tempered, bodybuilding brother; his gun-toting ex-wife; his mercurial former business partner –a tangled portrait emerges of an enigmatic con artist in over his head.
At the edges of the investigation lurks a shadowy, mythical figure known only as the Argentine, a man who poses an increasingly dire threat to the two young missionaries as they plunge recklessly forward.
Heliopolis by James Scudamore
Set against a city on the edge of reality, of high towers and seething favelas, of rich enclaves and social stratification.
Ludo is a boy taken from the slum of Heliopolis and raised in the gated wealth of Angel Park. Highly credible characters locked in often extreme situations.
By turns darkly humorous and poignant, Scudamore’s Booker Prize-nominated novel is a highly original take on the rags-to-riches story.
The Book of Rio by Katie Slade & Toni Marques
It’s the city the rest of the world descends on to party…. whether for the spectacular annual Carnival, the sun-kissed beaches, the World Cup, or, in 2016, the Olympics. It’s also a place that’s sadly become synonymous with some of the excesses of partying, the dark underbelly that accompanies any urban hedonist’s destination. But these are just two images of Rio. There are countless others: opulent seat of two former empires; stronghold of brutal, twentieth-century dictatorships; sprawling metropolis stretched between stunning mountain tops and equally stunning economic extremes – from the affluence of neighbourhoods like Leblon and Ipanema, to the overcrowded slums in the foothills, the favelas.
This anthology brings together ten short stories that go beyond the postcards and snapshots, and introduce us to real residents of Rio – the cariocas: young hopefuls training to be the next stars of samba, exhausted labourers press-ganged into meeting an impossible construction deadline (the nation’s pride being at stake), bored call-girls, nostalgic drag queens, married couples having petty middle-class domestics….
These are characters who’ve developed a deep understanding of Rio’s contradictions, a way of living with the grey areas – between the grime and the glitz – that make Rio the ‘marvellous city’ it is.
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
There were people on the banks of the river. Among the tangled waterways and giant anacondas of the Brazilian Rio Negro, an enigmatic scientist is developing a drug that could alter the lives of women for ever. Dr Annick Swenson’s work is shrouded in mystery: she refuses to report on her progress, especially to her investors, whose patience is fast running out. Anders Eckman, a mild-mannered lab researcher, is sent to investigate. A curt letter reporting his untimely death is all that returns. Now Marina Singh, Anders’s colleague and once a student of the mighty Dr Swenson, is their last hope. Compelled by the pleas of Anders’s wife, who refuses to accept that her husband is not coming home, Marina leaves the snowy plains of Minnesota and retraces her friend’s steps into the heart of the South American darkness, determined to track down Dr. Swenson and uncover the secrets being jealously guarded among the remotest tribes of the rainforest. What Marina does not yet know is that, in this ancient corner of the jungle, where the muddy waters and susurrating grasses hide countless unknown perils and temptations, she will face challenges beyond her wildest imagination. Marina is no longer the student, but only time will tell if she has learnt enough.
The Consul General’s Wife by Aliefka Bijlsma
Melchior Steenbergen is leading an idyllic life. An elite member of Holland’s diplomatic corps, he is the Consul General in Rio, with a sweeping view of the Ipanema bay from his official residence, and a beautiful wife 20 years his junior. His trustworthy maid, Mercy, who is from Ghana and has followed him everywhere, attends to his every need. At 59, his time as a diplomat is winding down, but he expects to put one more feather in his cap: an ambassadorship. Paris, perhaps. Doesn’t he deserve it?
But Melchior’s glorious world is a façade, a house of cards, and sharp winds are starting to blow.
The Consul General’s Wife is the story of a man, elegant and dignified, unable to recognize his own flaws. Set against the mystical and unforgiving city of Rio, the novel is a comedy about a dying generation. And a tragedy about a man who has only a few days left to wake up.
Spilt Milk by Chico Buarque
Centenarian Eulalio Assumpcao has reached the end of his long life. From his modest bed in a Rio public hospital, as his mind falters, he grandly recounts his past to passing nurses, his visiting daughter and the whitewashed ceiling. His eccentric stories are seemingly nothing more than the ramblings of a dying man, yet as he overlaps each confused memory, they begin to coalesce into a brilliant and bitter eulogy for himself and for Brazil.
Charting his own fall from aristocracy, Eulalio’s feverish monologue sprawls across the last century, from his empire-building ancestors to his drug-dealing great-great grandson. He confronts his senator father who squandered the family fortune on women and cocaine, and recalls the imperious mother who he always disappointed: but as he drifts through each shifting episode, he never stops searching for Matilde, the girl with cinnamon skin, who danced her way into his heart and then broke it when she disappeared.
City of God by Paulo Lins
Cidade de Deus, the City of God welcome to one of Rio’s most notorious slums. A place where the streets are awash with drugs, where violence can erupt at any moment, over drugs, money and love but also where the samba beat rocks til dawn, where the women are the most beautiful on earth, and where one young man wants to escape his background and become a photographer. Paulo Lins was born in Rio de Janeiro and at age seven moved to the ‘City of God’ housing project. He escaped the cycle of violence there to become an internationally celebrated writer, and still lives in Rio. This novel is the result of extended research in the housing project where Lins was raised. He spent eight years interviewing people and researching the drug trafficking and gang warfare that marked the history of the neighbourhood in the 1970s and 80s. Based on a true story, this is a sprawling, magnificently told epic about the history of gang life in Rio’s favelas. This is the original novel of the hugely acclaimed film.
From my Window by Otávio Júnior and Vanina Starkoff (Illustrator)
What do you see from your window? This #OwnVoices picture book from Brazil offers a first-hand view of what children growing up in the favelas of Rio de Janiero see everyday. A vibrant and diverse celebration of urban community living, brought to life by unique, colorful illustrations that juxtapose brick buildings with lush jungle plants.
1808 by Laurentino Gomes
How a crazy queen, a frightened prince and a corrupt court tricked Napoleon and changed the history of Portugal and Brazil. A book set in Brazil. The story of Portuguese King Dom João who fled Portugal as Napoleon was cutting a swathe through Europe. With initial support from the British, he fled to Brazil and transformed the colony, giving it its independence as he returned to Portugal. Translated from the Portuguese.
The Love of Singular Men by Victor Heringer, James Young (Translator)
Camilo is a middle-class boy growing up in the sweltering suburbs of 1970s Rio de Janeiro, during Brazil’s often brutal military dictatorship. Disabled by monoparesis, he lives a sheltered life under the blistering sun, rarely venturing beyond his own back garden. But his predictable existence is interrupted when his father, a doctor complicit in the torture of political prisoners, brings home an orphan, Cosme, to live with the family. Who is this boy? What is he doing here? Camilo instinctively hates him but this hate soon turns to love, before, in an echo of the violence and intolerance of the society around them, their happiness is tragically cut short. Narrated by the older Camilo, living alone in his childhood neighbourhood and haunted by his past, this short yet hugely ambitious novel by Jabuti Prize-winning author Victor Heringer (1988-2018) is marked by a dazzling linguistic inventiveness that brings everything from the smells of the Rio streets to the heat of the boys’ skin vividly to life. In it, Heringer combines an incisive exploration of Brazilian social and political issues with a moving account of first love, first grief and revenge, to make The Love of Singular Men a coming of age love story like no other – always visceral, often humorous, and never less than deeply moving.
Enjoy your literary trip to Brazil – and left us know in the Comments below whether there are any titles you would add to this list
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