A Mysterious Second Career

Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza didn’t take his first stab at writing fiction until he was 59. A professor of psychology and philosophy at Rio de Janeiro’s Federal University, ensconced in psychoanalytical and philosophical theory, he wrote The Silence of the Rain, the first in his Inspector Espinosa mystery series, in 1996.

With trepidation, he sent it to Companhia das Letras, one of the top publishing houses in Brazil. “Much to my surprise,” he says, “it was not only accepted but later won the Nestlé de Literatura and Jabuti, two of the most prestigious literary prizes here.”

Buoyed, he quit his job in 1998. Now 72, he has eight novels to his name. The six previous titles in the Espinosa series (all available in the United States) have been translated from Portuguese into seven languages, and in July 2009, Alone in the Crowd, the seventh, was published in the United States, continuing Espinosa’s psychological adventures. … Back to Article