Hachette India

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Diorama: an engrossing suspense novel set in 1980s Brazil

Carol Bensimon

Zo? Perry

Julia Sanches

Inspired by a true crime story from 1980s Brazil, Diorama is an engrossing, gritty and adrenalin-fueled coming of age novel, marked by displacement and never-closing family wounds.

Cecília Matzenbacher is a taxidermist working in Northern California. Her passion of restoring once-living things and constructing dioramas of enclosed immobilized worlds is all-encompassing. But when it comes to reconstructing her own history, Cecília's knack for composition frays.

When news comes that her father's heart is failing and she may need to return home to Brazil to see him before it's too late, Cecília's past won't stay fixed like a specimen behind glass any longer. Her story emerges, it stalks her, hunts her, and becomes her natural predator.

In 1988, as Brazil's dictatorship fell and democratic rule returned, a beloved local congressman in Porto Alegre was assassinated. The prime suspect: Cecília's father. Now, she threads the past and present, and reveals the secrets, lies, and taboo affairs that ignited the media frenzy and investigation of the murder.

In sleek, arresting prose that has the suspense-filled edge of a true-crime thriller, Carol Bensimon's newest novel cements her status as one of the most dynamic voices in contemporary Brazilian literature.

Carol Bensimon

Carol Bensimon was born in Porto Alegre in 1982. She is the author of the highly acclaimed novel O Clube dos Jardineiros de Fumaça (2017, Companhia das Letras) which won the Jabuti Award, the most prestigious literary award in Brazil and was shortlisted for the São Paulo Prize of Literature. She also wrote the novels We All Loved Cowboys (2013, Compania das Letras) which was published in the United States (Transit Press), France (Belfond) and Spain (Continta Me Tienes). Her debut novel Sinuca embaixo d'água was published in 2009 by Companhia das Letras after publishing her first work of fiction, the story collection Pó de parede (Não Editora, 2008). In 2012 Bensimon was selected by Granta as one of the Best Young Brazilian Novelists. She has a master's degree in Creative Writing from PUCRS. She lives with her girlfriend in Mendocino, California. Diorama is her fourth novel.