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!
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