Diorama cover art

Diorama

an engrossing suspense novel set in 1980s Brazil

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Diorama

By: Carol Bensimon, Zoë Perry - translator, Julia Sanches - translator
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About this listen

Inspired by a true crime story from 1980s Brazil, Diorama is an engrossing, gritty and adrenalin-fueled coming of age novel, marked by displacement and never-closing family wounds.

Cecília Matzenbacher is a taxidermist working in Northern California. Her passion of restoring once-living things and constructing dioramas of enclosed immobilized worlds is all-encompassing. But when it comes to reconstructing her own history, Cecília's knack for composition frays.

When news comes that her father's heart is failing and she may need to return home to Brazil to see him before it's too late, Cecília's past won't stay fixed like a specimen behind glass any longer. Her story emerges, it stalks her, hunts her, and becomes her natural predator.

In 1988, as Brazil's dictatorship fell and democratic rule returned, a beloved local congressman in Porto Alegre was assassinated. The prime suspect: Cecília's father. Now, she threads the past and present, and reveals the secrets, lies, and taboo affairs that ignited the media frenzy and investigation of the murder.

In sleek, arresting prose that has the suspense-filled edge of a true-crime thriller, Carol Bensimon's newest novel cements her status as one of the most dynamic voices in contemporary Brazilian literature. ©2026 Carol Bensimon
Coming of Age Genre Fiction United States World Literature
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