On Earth as It Is Beneath - by Ana Paula Maia (Paperback)

About the Book

In a remote corner of Brazil, life in a forgotten prison takes a sadistic, deadly turn.

Book Synopsis

On land where enslaved people were once tortured and murdered, the state built a penal colony in the wilderness, where inmates could be rehabilitated, but never escape. Now, decades later, and having only succeeded in trapping men, not changing them for the better, its operations are winding down. But in the prison's waning days, a new horror is unleashed: every full-moon night, the inmates are released, the warden is armed with rifles, and the hunt begins. Every man plans his escape, not knowing if his end will come at the hands of a familiar face, or from the unknown dangers beyond the prison walls. Ana Paula Maia has once again delivered a bracing vision of our potential for violence, and our collective failure to account for the consequences of our social and political action, or inaction. No crime is committed out of view for this novelist, and her raw, brutal power enlists us all as witness.

Review Quotes

PEN Translates Award (Award)

"Beautiful and gripping... a must read for those who like their poetry written in blood." --New York Times

"Maia has delivered a masterclass in suspense and allegory." --Morning Star

"A fast-paced and impactful book (...) Ana Paula Maia treads her own path, and it's a brutal one. All the better for us." --Escotilha

"A thinking person's sociological thriller that is also somehow a sort of fable, as tough to endure as it is to put down." --Southwest Review

About the Author

Ana Paula Maia (Nova Iguaçu, Brazil, 1977) is an author and scriptwriter who has published several novels, including O habitante das falhas subterráneas (2003), and the 'Saga of Brutes' trilogy which comprises Entre rinhas de cachorros e porcos abatidos (2009), O trabalho sujo dos outros (2009) and Carvão animal (2011). De gados e homens (2013), translated for Charco Press as Of Cattle and Men by Zoë Perry (2023) won the UK Republic of Consciousness Prize 2023 as well as the inaugural Cercador Prize for Literature in Translation in the US. Maia also won the São Paulo Literature Prize for Best Novel of the Year two years in a row: in 2018 for the novel On Earth As It Is Beneath (translated by Padma Viswanathan, 2025), and in 2019 for Bury Your Dead, out with Charco Press in 2026.

Padma Viswanathan is a Canadian-American writer and translator. Her novels have been published in eight countries and shortlisted for the PEN USA Prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and others. She has published short fiction, essays and translations in Granta, The Boston Review, BRICK, and elsewhere. Full-length translations include São Bernardo, by Brazilian novelist Graciliano Ramos and Where We Stand, by Djamila Ribeiro. Her most recent novel, The Charterhouse of Padma, came out in 2024. She is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, where she is Founding Director of the Arkansas International Writer-at-Risk Residency Program.