Novel
Chronicle of the Murdered House
Crônica da casa assassinada
Lúcio Cardoso · 1959
Synopsis
In an old chácara in the interior of Minas Gerais, the Meneses family, once powerful, is falling apart. It blames its ruin on the youngest son, Valdo, and on his marriage to Nina, an ardent woman whom the house seems to have been waiting for in order to destroy itself. Page by page, hidden kinships, adulteries, acts of violence and forbidden loves come to light. The narrative has no single narrator: letters, diaries, memories, depositions and confessions of the members of the household and their circle answer one another, without ever quite agreeing.
Context
The novel appeared in 1959. It is regarded as its author's masterwork, and Mario Carelli, who translated it into French in 1985, regards it as the culmination of his whole career. Benjamin Moser sees in it a revolution in Brazilian literature, breaking with the social realism of the 1930s. The book has been adapted for the cinema under the title A Casa Assassinada. Its English translation, by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson, received the Best Translated Book Award in 2017.
Who it is for
Long and demanding, with no single narrator: you have to accept not knowing who is telling the truth. Mario Carelli's French translation is the standard one.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as one of the most revered books of Brazilian literature, and crowned in the United States in 2017 in its English translation.