Winner of the São Paulo Prize for Best Book of the Year, The Front by Edimilson de Almeida Pereira introduces us to a nameless figure who refers to himself only as a “man-tree.” He lives beneath the din of police helicopters and beside an imposing garbage dump, where, as a child, he’d hunt for books. How will he respond to a system that attempts, relentlessly, through its tedium and violence, to silence him? The Front is an astonishingly original novel, one that nevertheless brings to mind James Baldwin’s unflinching critique of modern society and Clarice Lispector’s daring experiments with language. The Front introduces to English-language readers an important, deeply poetic voice from contemporary Brazil.