On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia

       File On Earth as It Is Beneath under “intense short novels.” Nominated for the International Booker Prize 2026, Ana Paula Maia and translator Padma Viswanathan present the bleak final days of a penal colony isolated from the rest of the world and seemingly forgotten completely. At the opening of the novel, the remaining prisoners can be counted essentially on one hand and as the novel progresses we learn more about the root cause of their dwindling numbers: the warden of the penal colony, a Colonel Kurtz type named Melquíades who hunts prisoners for sport under the guise of giving them the “opportunity” to escape. The colony is beyond all hope and even Melquíades and the remaining guard, Taborda, know it.

The backdrop of the novel is that the inspector will soon be paying a visit—and several of the colony’s residents see it as a portention of their doom: how could his inspection lead to anything but? The paranoiac atmosphere of the novel is finely wrought, partially because we see each of the residents in isolation and in communion with one another. Bronco Gil, arguably the main character, has plans of escape and advertises those to a trustworthy fellow inmate who later drugs him to disrupt the plan. When Melquíades goes missing, Taborda holes up in a tower with a gun, fearing an uprising from the remaining three prisoners. None of the prisoners can leave the compound, knowing that their ankle monitors double as bombs that will detonate once they reach a certain distance. It’s an oppressive atmosphere rendered all the more ominous as the prisoners dig graves for their fallen comrades—only to find more graves, unspeakable horrors held within boxes mistaken for treasure chests.

Bronco Gil reflects on his escape plan and he remembers that they had been preparing soil for planting: “The harsh sun burned his brown skin as, with quiet concentration, he dug like someone searching for a secret” (45). Maia then describes in rich detail him finding a human skull and eventually the whole skeleton, bound at the wrists and ankles. He continually discovered more bounds buried in this way: skeletons “of the enslaved, who had lived and died here” (45). The existential reflection kicks in: “Bronco wondered who knew what had happened inside these walls. He understood that he hadn’t been sent here to serve out his sentence but rather to be executed” (45). The ominous grounds reflects Melquíades’ “hunting prisoners, applying what he called his socio-educational measures” (45). Maia’s characterization of the central villain is compelling; Taborda explains that his boss “had gone crazy in recent months, between confinement, isolation and having to live alongside the evil inside every man in this place” (45). So much of the tension in the early section of the book is the knowledge that “Melquíades will never let anyone leave, not even Taborda, and, in the end, he’ll take his own life too. He could never live in society again; he’s eaten away by the system he defends” (45). It’s reminiscent of some of literature’s most unhinged villains—Cormac McCarthy’s Anton Chigurh or, as I mentioned, Colonel Kurtz from Heart of Darkness. There’s also a layer to it that implies a historical trauma. There is a lot of speculation about the land, but it’s implied that it was the site of mass disappearance and murder, a place of enslavement, torture, and killing. It’s like a haunted house narrative, a story of demonic possession at the hands of history. Given the South American flare of the story, it also feels like an allusive commentary on their difficult histories.

The interaction between the characters drives the tension, and Maia’s experience as a screenwriter really shines through. For example, we’re given the backstory for how Bronco Gil arrived in prison. Serving as a naive hitman-for-hire, he’s paid to get revenge on a man who killed a woman’s loved one. Ironically, she coaxes two thousand dollars from the man to help care for her sick child—which she then uses to pay for the hit on him. Clean. When Bronco Gil arrives to kill him, there’s a quiet moment where the man asks if he can feed his cats first, which Bronco Gil allows. They then end up in conversation about why the man is being killed, who paid for it, and so on. The tension of the scene is excellent. 

Later in the novel, the inspector Heitor does arrive but Taborda is the one providing the tour. Heitor is asking questions about the colony’s operation that Taborda and the inmates are answering evasively. It’s an interesting moment where the dynamic of the novel shifts: no longer is Taborda a functionary for Melquíades; no longer is Taborda a paranoiac hiding in a tower from the prisoners—Taborda and the inmates form a strange allegiance to one another, covering up for one another’s failings in the hope of making their way through the inspection. It’s comic—nearly a Weekend at Bernie’s type farce—but equally tense. Heitor is asking where Melquíades has gone (“oh, he sent his resignation but the mail must never have gotten there…”), why the colony has dropped from over forty prisoners to under five (“well, there was the outbreak…”), well where were the sick sent (“Melquíades is the only one who had the records, but he sent them to various hospitals…”). On Earth As It Is Beneath shows how easily farce can tip into suspense.

Taborda’s mental well-being, like the other characters, decays when strained. Early in the book, the prisoners are burying one of their fallen comrades; they come across a box that has horrors within it that make them physically sick and it is largely left as a mystery for the audience what has made this more horrible than their other daily experiences. When Taborda is forced to give Heitor a tour of the colony, Taborda gives up the ruse and reveals that baby skeletons are buried all throughout the colony’s land—that the horror existed long before them and has continued to descend into madness. When Heitor returns to the kitchen, the cook Valdênio, prepares the inspector a coffee. Heitor promises the old man that he’ll get them out of prison by the end of the day, but he wants to know the mysterious identity of the prisoner they’re keeping in solitary confinement. When Valdênio reveals that it’s Melquíades, Heitor is astonished. “Why didn’t you all tell who he was?” Heitor asks, and Valdênio responds, “Because we wanted to kill him and spare you” (88). The moment is tense—and by coincidence that statement ends the page. For a moment, it seems like they might kill the inspector, too, to save their skins and not reveal the truth. I’ll leave you to sit in that suspense.

For such a short novel, it’s action-packed and the twists were superb. Maia outlines Melquíades’ ritual of hunting prisoners. He’ll unclip them both from their bomb anklets and give them thirty seconds to run, after which he hunts them down and murders them. Nobody has ever escaped—hence why Bronco Gil has developed a whole plan about killing Melquíades, stealing his jeep, cutting off his own foot, and driving as far as he can. At one point, though, Melquíades sets two prisoners free and one legitimately escapes. When Melquíades tracks him down, the prisoner is able to knock him out. Later, in a jaw-dropping moment, Melquíades returns to camp dressed in a prisoner’s uniform. The tension of not knowing what he’ll do is expertly delivered; we’ve seen Melquíades act erratically—murderously—and so to see him stumble back into the prison creates an excellent sense of terror, which is undercut by irony.

In fact, the whole book is fueled with irony. I’ll be spoiling the ending in this paragraph, so feel free to jump ahead. The irony of the ending feels allegorical in nature. Bronco Gil escapes with Valdênio and as they reach the limits of the compound, Valdênio chooses to leave first—he’s old, there’s nothing left for him, etc. He doesn’t explode. The bombs on their ankle monitors were a lie and they might have escaped at any time. In addition to that irony, Bronco Gil is picked up as a hitchhiker and offered a job. The man offering him the job knows full well he was a criminal sent to this Kafka-esque prison (the prisoners are never told why they, of all criminals, were selected for this particular placement.) The man sees Bronco Gil’s ability to survive and escape as an asset, ignoring his criminal past—he will be an asset at the slaughterhouse (a slaughterhouse of all things—think of the parallels!). The man reveals that everyone knows the prison is a horrific place and that nobody ever leaves that hell. Everyone knows that convicts go in and never come out, but nobody seems to really question it or know the specifics. There’s meaning here well worth discussing; I’d love to teach this book to see what people come up with.

Similarly, Maia has a great sense of imagery and symbolism. The description of the setting is delivered with rich detail and there’s a bit of symbolism that would fit right in with Lord of the Flies: Melquíades collects boar heads that Bronco Gil has killed for him and has them taxidermied—but there are no suitable eyes to be found anywhere (nobody is able to boar witness…with apologies to the concept of language). Melquíades reflects, “It’ll take me a while to get used to those eyes being empty, but apart from that, it’s perfect” (22). The fact that he, too, is a lifeless, soulless entity might reveal some of his own affinities—and fear of—the eyeless boar.

On Earth As It Is Beneath is a really compelling narrative. The plot and tension drives the work, but it’s elevated beyond an action-thriller by Maia’s deft hand with imagery, symbolism, characterization, and philosophy. There’s enough secrecy and paranoia in the book to compel readers onward and the interactions between the characters really build the suspense that takes the comic and returns it with a rictus visage. It was a great experience—and easily readable within a day for an added bonus.

Happy reading!

The Future of Truth by Werner Herzog

        Filmic language operates through juxtaposition: we interpret meaning by the proximity of images presented in succession. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a Werner Herzog film in full, but the logic of cinematography is readily apparent in his The Future of Truth. Herzog’s book is a strange, little volume whose title makes it sound like it would be philosophy—and it kind of is—but it’s one that operates through association.

In the opening to the book, Herzog explains how philosophers have not been able to adequately define truth and so he has no grand ambitions for his own work. All the same, Herzog explores the idea of truth—not an objective truth, but an emotional truth that seems to govern our age. The circuitous route Herzog takes to get there is strange. The chapters are about topics as diverse as expeditions to the top of Mount Everest and Elon Musk’s mission to Mars and the plots of operas. There are a few common threads that pop up: fake identities, fake news, manipulation of reality through technology, but the way they weave together is primarily suggestive. Intuition guides us through.

Herzog shares vignettes that fit within the broader theme. For example, there is a chapter about Family Romance, LLC and Herzog elucidates the layers of deception involved in the project. (I should really watch this film). In reality, there’s a Japanese business that rents out people for special events—if you have someone unpresentable in your family (like an alcoholic father), you can rent out a stand-in, brief them on the background, and save face. In the film, which Herzog said was mistaken for a documentary, the actual owner of the business appears as a key figure in a story of false identities. At the core: everyone is lying. The hired father is a fake, but the woman he works for and her daughter share stories about a trip they never took. Deception operates throughout the film, but then also after the film there was meant to be an interview with Yuichi Ishii (the CEO) and one of the lonely men that uses the service. Yet, the lonely man selected never actually used their service and was in fact one of the rental family members. Herzog reports that it was a scandal and a loss of face. These layers of mistaken identity run through the text in an interesting way; it’s almost like the reverse of a doppelganger narrative.

Herzog also hops between moments in history to show the broader significance of ‘fakes.’ One chapter, for example, is a “history of fake news” starting with the very founding of Rome and depictions of Nero. It’s a weirdly humanizing take on the notoriously awful emperor; Herzog accounts his pleas for suicide and failed attempts. There’s a desperation in the account that’s quite moving—and then a weird account of the four other Neros who tried to take his place, linking them to the multiple Elvises romping around Japan’s downtown hubs. From there, Herzog jumps to Constantinople and competing popes and forged documents that were discovered during the Renaissance. Brief detour: Herzog talks about his meetings with boxer Mike Tyson, who—who knew—became an expert on obscure historical figures while in prison. After that, we get into Potemkin cities and the open secret of those papier-mâché towns and “Peace Village” in the demilitarized zone in Korea, a place built for 200 people with parks for families that has no occupants but is nonetheless swept clean every morning. Herzog links that to The Truman Show and the Enron sham, where they had a dress rehearsal for employees to pretend like business was going great. We hop back and forth and forward and side to side through these moments to, I think, contextualize our current moment of ‘fake news.’ There’s a chilling account, too, of Jean-Bédel Bokassa having one of his political enemies killed and eating half of him, the other half kept in the freezer.

The Bokassa section of the chapter is an incredible historical anecdote. He fathered many children, and in particular a girl named Martine with a Vietnamese woman. As an adult, Martine showed up and was welcomed by her father as her favourite. However, after that, another girl named Martine from Vietnam came forward and announced that she was his real daughter—the first was a fake. Martine2 brought forward an artefact and some knowledge that only the real Martine could have. Bokassa ends up accepting both and married them both off the same day in identical wedding dresses…well, before arresting both husbands and putting them to death. In Herzog’s account, the details are hazy: it sounds like perhaps there was a conspiracy of one husband to kill the child of the opposing Martine. The fake Martine got “sent back to Vietnam” but the private plane was back within half an hour. The power of this story is haunting and absurd to me. It’s one of those situations where the truth is stranger than fiction.

With all this about “Fake News: A Brief History”, what is intriguing to me is that Herzog shows a great deal of restraint. There could easily be a genuine political argument here, a discourse about the value of authenticity or our power to accept delusions. And yet, we are just given stories. Stories with a great deal of evocative power, but without definitive conclusions. This, I believe to be Herzog’s thesis throughout: truth is not that which is objectively provable, but some deeper core.

Towards the end of the book, there is some more discussion of Herzog’s own film projects and the implication to me is clear that he’s drawing on a different conception of truth, one he describes as “ecstatic.” The power of film, and stories more generally, is to elevate us to this ecstatic truth that reveals to us something beyond that which is easily comprehended through the lens of fact. It’s an argument that we’ve likely heard before about fiction, but something about Herzog’s presentation allows The Future of Truth to embody that argument. It’s the resonant quality of the anecdotes, the evocative power of the vignettes, the tracing of a historical thread so thin that Constantinople and Mike Tyson can appear in the same sentence. A connective tissue.

Happy reading, truth seekers!

Godgiven by Miranda Kassidy Franceschini

Reviewing this text is a challenge for me because it is an unpublished draft of a play and it is written by my niece. I was glad to have a full conversation of my thoughts with the playwright, and I hope that this short review can do some justice to Godgiven by Miranda Kassidy Franceschini. Godgiven is a play about desire, manipulation, responsibility, and the persistent hunger for more.

The play opens with a meta component: Echo emerges onto the stage with a participatory experience, I imagine, similar to the actual Greek tradition. The introduction to her character is a creative and clever trojan horse for bringing up some of the trigger warnings in the play. Franceschini and I talked through the implications of this opening and how to sustain its promise throughout the play meaningfully (Echo promises to warn the audience of the more traumatizing parts).

From there, the play begins in earnest with a bar scene of various Greek Gods having a good time. After six months, Helios, Maia, Elektra, Alkyone, Merope, Taygata, and Kelaino are having one last night on the town. The opening is engaging and light, and I think Franceschini really nails the dynamics of an ensemble, with characters bantering and talking over one another. There’s a great energy and rhythm to it. Then, enter Midas—probably my favourite character in the piece—who is a sordid figure who has been feeding them drinks all night and attempts to lure some of the ladies to go along with her.

Knowing nothing going in, I fully expected Midas to be one of the central sources of conflict in the play, but Franceschini subverts that expectation. Instead, we see Arvika the following morning prepared to worship Her Radiance, Kassiopeia. If you’re like me, you have only a little working knowledge of Greek mythology—luckily it’s not that important to know the backstories. In any case, in the course of her worship, Helios literally bumps into Arvika and, in an unfortunate turn of events for Arvika, Helios is selected to be Kassiopeia’s High Priest.

From there, the play becomes somewhat like Doctor Faustus: Helios has powers he doesn’t know how to grapple with, made all the more challenging due to his reluctance. He’s under the direct guidance of Echo (Aspect of Truth), Midas (Aspect of Fortune), and Ikarian (Aspect of Justice). Again, I think the dynamic between the characters is what helps the play to shine. In particular, Echo’s humour and levity plays against Helios’ doubt and self-seriousness effectively. For example, when Echo introduces Helios to the idea of the confessional, it plays Helios’ skepticism against Echo’s blind optimism in a fun, critical scene. Sometimes I found Echo to be a bit much, but if the performer sells the exuberance well it works well.

I don’t want to spoil too much of the play, but it’s partly about Helios taking on the role of High Priest, partly about his love for a mountain foundling named Vertmont, and partly about Kassiopeia giving Helios the “gift of hunger” (I like that phrase and premise) such that he can’t really be satiated.

One of the things I noted about the script is that Franceschini could trust her actors and audience a bit more and scale back in turn. Several characters have lengthy soliloquies that, in my view, overexplain what could be shown through the performance or inferred by the audience. Sometimes the exposition works; there’s a sneaky moment early on when the characters are explaining their situation and one character justifies the exposition by saying, “my memory went away six drinks ago” (4). Moments like that feel contextually justified. Some of the monologues, though, narrate more information than is necessary and the subtlety of less-is-more would help those scenes shine stronger. Similar, there’s a moment of innuendo that Helios apologizes for, but I think letting the innuendo sit without drawing attention to it would be more powerful—at the culmination of the conflict between Helios and Vert similarly feels like it could be scaled back to feel more natural. 

Speaking of staging, I am very curious to see how this play would be staged. There are a number of moments in the text that open up for a great deal of creativity. For example, when Helios bumps into Arvika, he spills wine on her and then removes the stain with magic. In another scene, Helios disappears from a confessional, the confessional is lifted into the air by a giant, and the confessional goes up in flames. Actually, the play has a lot of fire and I don’t know how one of the characters is going to get incinerated into ash.

There are a few standout lines that give the play some extra poetry. A few that stood out to me are that “when the moonlight shines over the water, it’s like the sea is space’s mirror” (3) and “he knew better than to let weeds take what belonged to the flowers” (15). There’s also a play on “saviours” and “savourers” (49) that is pretty clever and fits thematically with the text. From a technical perspective, I think there’s still a fair amount of work to do on the play—it’s in draft form, after all, but the punctuation and spelling could be cleaned up for a stronger final product.

As far as characters go, I really liked Midas as an agent of chaos. The wild card factor is fun and she’s also a creep that preys on women. There’s a scene where she’s pitching a nunnery and she’s such a gross predator, but it’s presented in kind of a fun way that is hard to resist. I just wish the characters had more of a chance for an ensemble; the opening scene of the play offers such rich characterization and seeing them interact more throughout the play would be a nice addition (though there’s a logical reason it doesn’t happen…). Helios also has a really nice trajectory; he has a redemptive arc as a reluctant messiah type to someone who is actually pretty selfless. It doesn’t work out great for him, but it feels like a genuine transformation.

Plot wise, there’s a pretty effective escalation. There’s a moment (I think in act 4?) where there’s an unexpected twist that recontextualizes the play. It’s a pretty devastating moment for Helios and actually had me flipping back to a previous scene demanding to know how I hadn’t seen the twist coming and I think that was probably the best plot beat. The conclusion of the play was satisfying, though I wasn’t entirely certain about the villain’s motivations. There might be a bit more baked into the dialogue to show why Helios gets targeted the way he does—same for why Ikarian has a change of heart. Even a little hint in a previous scene could go a long way towards the payoff for those developments.

I sincerely hope that Franceschini gets to stage this play and would be genuinely curious to see how it gets staged. It’s a play of many possibilities. I’m really proud of my niece for breaking into the writing world and hope that this is the start of a wonderful journey for her.

Happy reading!