NOWHERE PEOPLE | BOOK REVIEW
By Paulo Scott (And Other Stories). Price: £10/£5 eBook. Info: www.andotherstories.org
I picked this book out because I was completely intrigued by the premise: a law student gives a lift to a young indigenous girl in Brazil, who is collecting discarded newspapers in the pouring rain. It felt like it could go anywhere, and it certainly doesn’t go anywhere predictable.
The opening pages are wonderfully descriptive, overly so in places, with Scott playing tour guide and literally listing the names of towns and establishments, to the point where they start to detract from the narrative. There was also a distinctly aggressive, angry feel to the start of the book and I wondered if I was going to like it. A quarter of the way through, there was certainly nothing to make me warm to the main protagonist Paulo who, at times, is cruel and misogynistic.
Paulo is a young lawyer and political activist and we’re also given an introduction, through his eyes, to the complex issues surrounding race and class in modern day Brazil. Post-World Cup 2014, the details here feel particularly resonant. This turns out to be the perfect set-up for what comes next: Paulo being forced to re-examine his own character and the people around him. With the introduction of Maina, the young Guarani Indian girl, the novel immediately softens, with beautifully written passages describing the tentative development of
their unexpected friendship.
I’m not sure how autobiographical this novel is, though there are many similarities with the protagonist and the author, not least their fi rst names. Nowhere People certainly isn’t a typical mainstream read, and can at times be diffi cult to navigate, with Scott losing focus. You forgive him, though, as it seems to come more from a man with a strong message he’s desperate to share, than from a writer who’s lost his way.
words MARIA-LUISA MEREDITH