A slim, searching novel from Brazilian writer Julián Fuks, translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn and published by Charco Press.

Occupation follows Fuks’ autofictional alter ego Sebastián through three overlapping states of occupation: conversations with refugees living in an occupied building in São Paulo, his father’s illness, and his wife’s pregnancy. Fuks moves between documentary attention and personal discomfort, asking what it means to witness suffering without converting it into literary capital — a noble aim, naturally impossible, which is half the tension of the thing.

Good for readers of autofiction, translated literature, contemporary Latin American writing, migrant/refugee narratives, political fiction, and novels interested in fatherhood, death, belonging and the blurriness that comes with writing about other people’s pain.

Charco Press. Paperback. Translated by Daniel Hahn. First published in English in 2021. Clean copy.