Saving the Fire: A Novel

Moisés lives with his father and sister in a Brazilian village dominated by the local monastery. His mother having died mysteriously, Moisés is raised by his sister Luzia, a young woman rumored to be a witch and despised by the villagers. Luzia seeks protection from the monastery, where she gets a job as a laundress and where Moisés receives an education. In time, something triggers her brother to rebel and run away from home. Luzia finds herself wholly alone, fighting for the family's land and for her life. Unknown to her, Moisés, too, has put himself on the front line of an ancient conflict between colonial oppressors and the dispossessed. Epic and lyrical, with the power to enchant as well as outrage, Saving the Fire presents the ghosts of a family's past lost amid the shadows of a nation's history. Masterfully, Itamar Vieira Junior blends the intimate journeys of his characters with faithfully rendered elements of Brazilian life in a world where the scars of colonialism still ache.