“Every man has his price.” With these words, Carmelio the hangman defends his right to murder. He is the face of a rotted soul, the personification of immorality. His power, however, is incomplete. Tormented by memories, persecuted by his victims’ ghosts, Carmelio searches desperately for serenity. Sent to the Nordeste area of Brazil on an “easy” mission, he comes to understand his situation, that of a cold-blooded killer, executing orders that are as unjust as cruel. Accustomed to impunity, he nevertheless performs his job capably, but the emotional impact of his guilt inflicts on him an unmanageable passion. In an excess of saintly insanity, he runs off on a pilgrimage to the land of Father Cicero, but in his search for repentance and devotion he only succeeds in further alienating himself from the rest of humanity. Especially from the beautiful Dorinha. In humiliation or revolt, in religion or love, on the beaches of Rio or on the sertao of Nordeste, Carmelio can only experience suffering and oppression.
With cruelty and passion, Heloneida Studart, makes a powerful critique of society, at the same time exploring an introspective tone as well as complex psychological characters. A unique literary technique and style blended with the author’s political and personal battle against anarchy make for an impressive novel, one that resurrects the recent past and brutally rips the bandages off still fresh wounds from a chapter of Brazilian history.
TITLE : The Hangman
AUTHOR : Heloneida Studart
COUNTRY : Brazil
AUTHOR : Heloneida Studart
COUNTRY : Brazil
NUMBER OF PAGES : 346
SOLD TO: Marcos y Marcos (Italy)
SOLD TO: Marcos y Marcos (Italy)
EXCERPT
The first time I saw Dorinha, outside the archives of the public library in Fortaleza, I wondered if I had found my mother. Though I was thirty-five years old, I’ve always pictured my mother at an age that could be my daughter’s. These past months she has appeared like this in my dreams: dressed in white, thick hair, skin as light as an orderly sheet of paper. When I was a child I imagined my mother as a big-breasted platinum blonde, like a comic-strip heroine. Between fifteen and eighteen, I thought that she was probably a mulatto. The bitter words of my godmother Conceição, who brought me up strictly, wielding a cedar rod, went more or less like this: “She turned up here and asked for work as a cook. She had you in her arms. Her complexion was greenish, her hair was pulled to one side, and she agreed to work for half pay. But I would never have believed that she could leave her son behind in the servant’s room, like a stray cat!”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Heloneida Studart was born in Fortaleza, Brazil, in 1932. Imprisoned for several months in 1969 for her literary, journalistic, and union activities, Heloneida Studart was for a number of years on the black list of the military then in power. Following the assassinations of some very close friends, she wrote O pardal é un passaro azul, when Brazil was going through a new process of democratization. A feminist theoretician, essayist, playwright, and author of nine novels, Heloneida Studart has also been a deputy for the PT (Workers’ Party) of the state of Rio de Janeiro since 1978.
The first time I saw Dorinha, outside the archives of the public library in Fortaleza, I wondered if I had found my mother. Though I was thirty-five years old, I’ve always pictured my mother at an age that could be my daughter’s. These past months she has appeared like this in my dreams: dressed in white, thick hair, skin as light as an orderly sheet of paper. When I was a child I imagined my mother as a big-breasted platinum blonde, like a comic-strip heroine. Between fifteen and eighteen, I thought that she was probably a mulatto. The bitter words of my godmother Conceição, who brought me up strictly, wielding a cedar rod, went more or less like this: “She turned up here and asked for work as a cook. She had you in her arms. Her complexion was greenish, her hair was pulled to one side, and she agreed to work for half pay. But I would never have believed that she could leave her son behind in the servant’s room, like a stray cat!”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Heloneida Studart was born in Fortaleza, Brazil, in 1932. Imprisoned for several months in 1969 for her literary, journalistic, and union activities, Heloneida Studart was for a number of years on the black list of the military then in power. Following the assassinations of some very close friends, she wrote O pardal é un passaro azul, when Brazil was going through a new process of democratization. A feminist theoretician, essayist, playwright, and author of nine novels, Heloneida Studart has also been a deputy for the PT (Workers’ Party) of the state of Rio de Janeiro since 1978.






