Super Giant

Ana Pessoa & Bernardo P. Carvalho

Edgar runs at full speed, to leave everything behind: family, school, friends. Today is the saddest day of his life, because his grandfather is gone, but also the happiest, since Joana kissed him for the first time. Running along with his thoughts and reflections, Edgar grows bigger and bigger and no longer fits inside his own body. He is a monster. He is a super giant.

Ana Pessoa, born in Lisbon in 1982, began writing stories at the age of 10 and finished her studies in Modern Languages and Literatures (Portuguese and German Studies) at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon. Since 2007, she lives in Brussels where she also works as a translator. Pessoa’s books, often illustrated by Bernardo P. Carvalho and Joana Estrela, have received several awards in Portugal as well as internationally.

Press voices

“Ana Pessoa’s second novel is worthy of all the same praise (as the first). In Supergiant, a narrative where loss and a first discovery of love run alongside and in and out of one another, and where rhythm, carefully wrought language and a boldness in the handling of delicate subjects are all confirmed. Bernardo Carvalho lights up select passages with perfectly apt illustrations.” Sara Figueiredo Costa, Atual magazine, Expresso newspaper

“5 stars by Timeout magazine: Told in a torrent — the anxious stream-of-consciousness of an angry teen which is also portrayed in the similarly restless illustrations by Bernardo Carvalho — Supergiant is brimming with loss, but also with love, proving the truth of the claim which appears right at the start: “the end is the beginning of something else”. And what is impressive, above all when writing for younger readers, (…) is the way in which Ana Pessoa manages to express a certain rage at a world which seems not to make sense, at the same time as she leaves a note of hope.” Ana Dias Ferreira, Timeout magazine

“5 stars by Expresso newspaper: (…) what’s certain is that in the end, or else at the beginning — the order is irrelevant — everything finds its place and position and makes sense, that is this book’s greatest feat, as it makes the chaos of adolescence not only palpable but understandable, beautiful in its fragility. It is the incredibly delicate and intelligent prose of Ana Pessoa, with its absolutely realistic dialogues, which manages to do this. But it is also the illustrations by Bernardo Carvalho – stains of colour and silhouettes which capture just the right atmospheres (…)” José Mário Silva, Atual magazine, Expresso newspaper

Books by Ana Pessoa