'Fascinating, shape-shifting . . . This potent, meandering mixture of text and image, fact and fiction.' Daily Telegraph

São Paulo; the 60s. Ciccio's life is full of challenges. And when he finds, buried in the library of his distant and larger-than-life father, a troubling letter dated 'December 21, 1931. Berlin', his existential crisis only intensifies.

It seems that his father once had a child with a German woman, in Berlin - a son whose fate remains uncertain. Ciccio sets out on a mission to locate his half-brother, and to win his father's respect. But as Brazil's military government cracks down on dissent, and rumours of arrests and disappearances spread, Ciccio finds that as he has been searching for his German brother he has taken his eye off his immediate family . . .

Inspired by Chico Buarque's search for his own German half-brother, this novel is a fascinating blend of what happened, what might have happened, and sheer imagination.

'At the centre of this diabolically inventive novel there's the unmistakable beating of a broken human heart.' Literary Review

'Intriguing and inventive . . . [Buarque] unravels a tale that is part historical mystery, part intellectual and sexual coming of age.' Vanity Fair