Three Stories of Forgetting

Name: Three Stories of Forgetting
Price: 32.99 AUD
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ISBN: 9780374612092

Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida, Alison Entrekin

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Paperback

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English

Farrar Straus Giroux
17 March 2026

Fiction & Literature; Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

The discrete yet overlapping tales in Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida's Three Stories of Forgetting explore the lives of three men-perhaps already dead in the eyes of God-who live within the legacies of slavery, colonialism, and the spoils of the Portuguese Empire. They are all incarnations of our despair in the face of the questions that history does not answer. In ""The Vision of the Plants,"" Celestino, an old slave trader, returns to the solitude of his home and garden after a life of horrors. In ""Seaquake,"" Boa Morte da Silva, an Angolan who served on the Portuguese side in the Colonial War and has become a valet in Lisbon, writes to his daughter asking for forgiveness. And in ""Bruma,"" an old slave initiates a young Eça de Queiroz into the world of French literature, even as he finds himself trapped by his own demons.

Left to their agony, remorse, and guilt, or undeserved peace, the three men may be tormented ghosts who cannot find rest. Perhaps the land they aspire to, their home in this world, is a place hidden in their souls, somewhere between nowhere and goodbye. Their lives are unstable chapters in postcolonial history and allegories of the reading and rereading of that history, and of literature. All three have been expelled from their lives, sent on a solitary journey into the night.

By: Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida
Translated by: Alison Entrekin
Imprint: Farrar Straus Giroux
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 208mm, Width: 135mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9780374612092
ISBN 10: 0374612099
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 17 March 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida was born in Luanda, Angola, and was raised in Portugal. She is the author of several prizewinning novels, including That Hair, a finalist for the PEN Translation Prize. Her stories and essays have appeared in Granta and Words Without Borders, among other publications. She holds a PhD in literary theory from the University of Lisbon. Alison Entrekin is an award-winning translator from the Portuguese. Her translations include Clarice Lispector's Near to the Wild Heart, Paulo Lins's City of God, and João Guimarães Rosa's modernist classic Vastlands: The Crossing. Her work has earned her the PEN medallion for her body of work and the 2022 AAWP-UWRF Translators' Prize.

Reviews for Three Stories of Forgetting

""[A] haunting triptych of stories."" --Marc Weingarten, Los Angeles Times ""A brilliant, yet understated, critique of a past that Portugal most likely hopes to forget. Lyrical, enigmatic, and subtle: an accomplished work."" --Kirkus Reviews ""Poignant . . . [and] compelling."" --Alejandro Chacoff, The New York Times Book Review ""Beautifully written . . . Dark and quiet yet powerful, this volume offers a thoughtful critique of colonial violence."" --Ms. ""[A] contemplative triptych . . . Heart-wrenching and uplifting . . . A well-crafted depiction of the hidden bonds between individuals and empire."" --Publishers Weekly ""[Three Stories of Forgetting] sharply and wrenchingly confronts terrifying colonial legacies . . . Haunting."" --Terry Hong, Shelf Awareness ""[An] excellent collection."" --The Brooklyn Rail ""One of the most important voices in Lusophone literature today, Almeida examines the ghosts of the Portuguese Empire through the eyes of men tormented by remorse and the spoils of war."" --Brittle Paper ""A symphony of resistance."" --Público (Portugal) ""A sumptuous triptych."" --Télérama (France) ""Impressionistic . . . Poetic and precise."" --Le Monde (France) ""Let the sentences melt in your mouth . . . One gets almost dizzy amid the beauty of the words, the sounds. An intoxicating read."" --Folha de São Paulo (Brazil) ""Pereira de Almeida's sharp, sensual prose speaks of the inescapable past and of [a] trembling humanity. A rarity."" --Le Matricule des Anges (Frances) ""Each of these three tales exerts a singular power of fascination . . . Magical."" --Le Temps (Switzerland)