Crow Blue

I was thirteen. Being thirteen is like being in the middle of nowhere. Which was accentuated by the fact that I was in the middle of nowhere. In a house that wasn’t mine. In a city that wasn’t mine, in a country that wasn’t mine, with a one-man family that, in spite of the intersections and intentions (all very good), wasn’t mine.

When her mother dies, thirteen-year-old Vanja is left with no family and no sense of who she is, where she belongs, and what she should do. Determined to find her biological father in order to fill the void that has so suddenly appeared in her life, Vanja decides to leave Rio de Janeiro to live in Colorado with her stepfather, a former guerrilla notorious for his violent past. From there she goes in search of her biological father, tracing her mother’s footsteps and gradually discovering the truth about herself.

Rendered in lyrical and passionate prose, Crow Blue is a literary road trip through Brazil and America, and through dark decades of familial and political history.

Brazilian author Adriana Lisboa was awarded the Jose Saramago Literary Prize in 2003 and was named one of the most distinguished Latin American writers under the age of thirty-nine by the Hay Festival in 2007. Her work—novels, stories, poetry, and books for children—has been translated in several languages, including Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Swedish. A native of Rio, she has lived in France, where she sang bossa nova professionally. She now resides near Boulder, Colorado.
www.adrianalisboa.com