Via Ápia - Geovani Martins

\nFrom one of Brazil's most acclaimed new literary stars, a twenty-first-century epic set in Rio's largest favela. \n \nBrothers Washington and Wesley work part-time at a restaurant as servers for kids' birthday parties. After helping their mom out with the household expenses, they spend the extra cash on a bit of fun whenever possible, and get high on that good quality weed when it's available. Douglas, Murilo, and Biel split an apartment, sharing everything from their joints to their chores, just a quick bus ride from the beach on Via Ápia, the main entry point and commercial avenue of the favela Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro. \n \nThe lives of these five young people are far from the ease and leisure that many associate with one of Brazil's most photogenic, well-known cities. Still, they manage, and life on the morro, the hill, is good. \n \nAll of this gets upturned when, in November 2011, the UPP, Brazil's militarized police unit, occupies Rocinha as part of the pacification efforts and the so-called war on drugs, in anticipation of the World Cup, the Olympics, and an influx of global tourism in Rio. Via Ápia is divided into three parts: the expectant anxiousness of waiting for the UPP invasion; the chaos born from their installation on the hill; and their silent withdrawal from the favela after one year. \n \nTold in short bursts and marked by the charged chronology of the year and a half of the protagonists' lives, Geovani Martins's prodigious debut novel knits together the dramas and dreams of the favela during a peak of violence and unrest. Just like the boomboom-kat of Brazilian funk, the unbridled ambitions and the resolute friendships of his characters blare through Via Ápia, delivering a resonant counternarrative to the notion that violent interventions are the state's only remedies to social problems. The favela retorts: Life, life is the answer.\n