Coração sem medo - Itamar Vieira Junior

The book that concludes the trilogy begun in Torto Arado, Coração sem medo is one of those books that truly grabs you! The main narrative follows Rita’s journey after her oldest son disappears in the outskirts of Salvador, Bahia. Once again, Itamar is razor-sharp in portraying the lives of people in the peripheral communities of Brazilian capital cities: the institutional violence the State inflicts, and the exploitation this population is subjected to throughout their lives. But at the same time, it is a book about hope. The hope of a mother seeing her son again, of a child having a better life than their parents, of a mother being reunited with her daughter.

Coração sem medo - Itamar Vieria Junior

In this book, we also learn the resolution of some stories that began in Torto Arado and Salvar o Fogo, when important characters from those plots disappear, or when the whereabouts of other characters who have left remain unknown. This brings up another issue that I think is important in Itamar’s work: the right to memory, something the Black population in Brazil has not been granted. The book resonated with me deeply because it portrays realities similar to those I witnessed growing up in the outskirts of Recife, Pernambuco, which, like Salvador, Bahia, received a large influx of migrants from the interior who were displaced by land disputes or extreme climate events (droughts or floods) and had to rebuild their lives around some of the older capitals of the Northeast.

Many times, the concerns Rita had throughout the book reminded me of many of the worries my mother, or the mothers of the children I played with in the street where I grew up, used to have. And this resonated deeply throughout my reading experience of this book.

Synopsis:

Rita Preta, a supermarket cashier and mother of three, sees her life transformed when one of them — her teenage son Cid — disappears without a trace in the community where they live in Salvador. In her search for answers, she faces the possibility of losing her job, her romantic relationship, and even her own life. Realistic, yet never forgetting the power of dreams, this is a novel grounded in Brazilian reality and social injustices, in which the characters struggle for dignity guaranteed by a piece of land. A battle that is not only about territory, but also about cultural heritage, Afro-Indigenous religiosity, and female emancipation.

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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Todavia

• Publication date ‏ : ‎ 20 Jan. 2026

• Language ‏ : ‎ Portuguese

• Print length ‏ : ‎ 328 pages

• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9722087544