The sun on my head : stories

Author

Geovani Martins

Call Number

• FICTION MART (OSH)

Edition

First American edition.

Publication Information

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019.

Physical Description

116 pages ; 20 cm

Summary

In The Sun on My Head, Geovani Martins recounts the experiences of boys growing up in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro in the early years of the twenty-first century. Drawing on his childhood and adolescence, Martins uses the rhythms and slang of his neighborhood dialect to capture the texture of life in the slums, where every day is shadowed by a ubiquitous drug culture, the constant threat of the police, and the confines of poverty, violence, and racial oppression. And yet these are also stories of friendship, romance, and momentary relief, as in 'Rolézim,' where a group of teenagers head to the beach. Other stories, all uncompromising in their realism and yet diverse in narrative form, explore the changes that occur when militarized police occupy the favelas in the lead-up to the World Cup, the cycles of violence in the narcotics trade, and the feelings of invisibility that define the realities of so many in Rio's underclass.

Notes

"Originally published in 2018 by Companhia Das Letras, Brazil, as O Sol Na Cabeça."

Contents

• Lil spin
• Spiral
• Russian roulette
• Case of the butterfly
• Tale of parakeet and ape
• Bathroom blonde
• Tag
• Trip
• Mystery of the vila
• Padre miguel station
• Blind man
• TGIF
• Crossing.