A língua submersa
The Sunken Language
by Manoel Herzog
Alfaguara 2023
216 pages
15×23 cm
An epic novel about human strength and power of destruction.
The World has been hit by a climate disaster. The sea level has risen, the Northern hemisphere has been mostly covered in waters, and so has the Southern. Latin America is now a small area of land, called Bolivana-Zumbi.
The new country is guided by a religious group called Eclésia, who collaborates closely with China, now the most influential country in the world.
This reorganized world has the supreme mission of defending Nature, and the worst punished crimes are those that affect it: it is forbidden to exploit Nature in any form, to use natural resources, to eat animals, to cut wood.
Language has changed too: the people of Bolivana-Zumbi now speak a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese, while the former Portuguese, English and other languages are now forbidden.
To pursue their mission to defend Nature, the people in power create a manipulative religious cult that guides people through money and extremist beliefs.
In this scenario, the author creates a complex plot that brings together the lives of many characters, showing us who they were before the flood and who they have become now that the population is once again divided in strict classes, dominated by a common fear of death.
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Manoel Herzog was born in Santos, São Paulo, in 1964. Raised in Cubatão, he worked in the chemical industry and graduated in law. He debuted in literature in 1987 with the poems of Brincadeira surrealista. Among other books, he is the author of the novels Os bichos (2012), Companhia Brasileira de Alquimia (2013), O evangelista (2015) and the poetry book The comedy by Alissia Bloom (2014), shortlisted for the Jabuti prize. In 2017, Alfaguara published his novel The ja- ckfruit from the cemetery is sweeter, and in 2019 his novel Goodnight, Amazon.
* For any info about Manoel Herzog’s other publications please contact us at info@redondobooks.com *
