The secret bird

The 2021 Kindle Literature Prize-winning novel.

Winner of the 2021 Kindle Prize, The Secret Bird , by Marilia Arnaud, tells the story of Aglaia Negromonte. Possessed by something that tears at her heart, her life takes an unexpected turn when her father's great secret—the existence of a daughter out of wedlock—is revealed to the family. Thalie's arrival provokes a series of shifts in affections and certainties, especially in Aglaia, who finds herself confronted with jealousy, anger, and envy—feelings that will lead her down a path of violence and self-destruction.

In this psychological novel, Aglaia recounts her childhood and adolescence memories in an attempt to understand some of the most significant events in her life. Thus, readers are drawn into a family drama, in which everyday issues, seemingly trivial at first glance, gain psychological depth and depth in the protagonist.

For award-winning writer Itamar Vieira Júnior, "Aglaia is a pilgrim balancing on the fine line between delicacy and torment. A destabilizing novel that takes us to the heart of the human condition."

In the words of writer João Carrascozza, “the exquisite construction of the plot’s protagonist and the secure and lyrical narrative register – rare in long stories, materialized by the epic tone –, the progression of events in the right time, the well-crafted fabric of the plot (which thus contemplates human complexity) and the suspension of the predictable contributed to the high fictional voltage that The Secret Bird embodies as its most expressive differentials”.

In two words, The Secret Bird , by Marilia Arnaud, is a heartbreaking and captivating novel.