Zov

After Cadernos de Bernfried Jarvi, ZOV.

A book that takes us on a journey without a map, chaotic and subversive, with anything that looks like a stage in the background and a few characters on stage. But do not be fooled by this description, this is a book that does not fit anywhere, a whirlwind of a read, a literary earthquake.

« A riddle: what is better than God, worse than the devil... that the dead do not eat… [Hesitates.] No, that the dead eat… [Hesitates again.] Yes, that the dead eat… And that the living... [Makes an effort to remember.] How was it? And if the living eat… And if the living eat, they die? Is that it? I forgot. Well, everyone knows the answer: it is Nothing. »

Rui Manuel Amaral (b. 1973) is a Portuguese writer who has been establishing himself through the originality of his work, situated between fiction, chronicle, and essay. Throughout his life, he has published books that explore textual brevity, the fragmented register, and the questioning of language itself. His writing stands out for its meticulous attention to the margins of everyday life, as well as its refusal to adopt conventional narrative models. With a relatively brief, but already significant body of work, Rui Manuel Amaral has established himself as a singular voice in contemporary Portuguese literature, marked by experimentation and the search for new forms of expression.