by Paulo Scott, translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn (and other stories)
All the events in Brazilian author Paulo Scott’s intriguing, if flawed, novel flow from one spur-of-the-moment decision made by the character Paulo, a radical, disillusioned law student. Driving home from a Workers’ Party meeting in Porto Alegre, Paulo impulsively stops to give a lift to a young indigenous Guaraní girl, dropping her off at her family’s camp further along the motorway. Later, intrigued by the enigmatic girl – Maína – he returns to the camp and begins an ambiguous, one-sided relationship with her. In the first of the book’s many plot lurches, Maína becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son, Donato, just as Paulo leaves Brazil to become an affectless, drifting squatter in London.
