The Words That Remain

The Words That Remain is the debut novel of the Brazilian writer Stênio Gardel, translated from the Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato. Raimundo grew up in a poor and remote part of rural Brazil and spent most of his life unable to read. As a young man he received a letter from Cícero, the boy he loved, but after his father beat him for the relationship, the letter stayed with him unread for decades as he built a life in the city. At the age of seventy-one, Raimundo finally learns to read, and the novel moves between his present and his past as he prepares to open the letter at last. It is a short, intimate story about love, shame, literacy and the long reach of a single moment in a life. It won the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature.