Exemplary Humans, Juliana Leite, translated by Zoë Perry, 2026, Two Lines Press
Memory is an increasingly important theme in Latin America and the subject of considerable scholarship that makes the region something of an outrider in this field.
The fragility of young democracies is the main reason why scholarship into processes of memory construction and the conflicts that arise from this has proliferated.
Juliana Leite understands the principal themes such perspectives address instinctively, concocting an intelligent and ambitious exploration that links these both to the broader sweep of history but also to the personal dimension of memory.
The tableau used for this Brazilian writer’s second novel, her debut in English translation (Zoë Perry) is that of a centenarian, clearly approaching death, who looks back at her life with that mixture of accurate recollection and forgetfulness that distinguishes us all.
Set in Rio de Janeiro, former educator Natalia is waiting for the daily call from her daughter who lives halfway across the world.
As old people do, she revisits scenes from her life, reflecting upon her many experiences through the “exemplary” individuals she has known, reference points for the invisible company that those knocking at death’s door are aware of.
Thse include her husband, also a teacher who was victimised by Brazil’s military during the country’s long dictatorship; her testy friend Sarah, a baker of sorts; a local homeless man; and former comrades in the resistance who either fled or were “disappeared”.
This is an interesting, thoughtful mechanism by which to explore memory, with a narrative that blurs time, taking us back and forth between past and present with an immediacy that establishes the historical reality of so many traumas in Latin America.
The prose can be poignant, and is well constructed, with a form of oscillation between third and first person that suggests we are simultanously hearing one person’s story but also experiencing something of a collective memory.
The theme of death is ever present, and this also underlines a form of fatal consequence that is very near the surface in so much of the Latin American experience.
External forces feel like they threaten a calamitous change in one’s life, transforming identity as much into personal survival as a temporal product.
Leite writes: “At some point the daughter became a daughter who lives far away, and Vicente disappeared because, well, he died and so he was busy with other things … Vicente is right over there, looking out from his picture frame and agreeing with me. He was a living man for so many years that I often forget he’s gone. I act like that man is still around, taking a shower or reading magazines in the bathroom. Every now and then I have to remind myself that, yes, he’s already dead.”
As Catherine Lacey notes in the Introduction, the ultimate effect of this book might be inside Vicente’s question—am I still alive, despite everything that has been thrown at me?
Originally published in Portuguese in 2022 as Humanos exemplares, this novel can act as a reminder—as Brazil prepares to go to polls this year in which the far-right looms once again—that the present comes at the price of the past.
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Categories: Brazil