Maurício Gomyde

Maurício Gomyde

Maurício Gomyde is a writer, screenwriter, and musician. He started his career in 2001 and released four successful independent novels before getting his first contract with a traditional publishing house. It was for A MÁQUINA DE CONTAR HISTÓRIAS (THE STORYTELLING MACHINE), a huge success for Novo Conceito that was followed by Surpreendente! (Amazing!), published in Brazil by Intrínseca and translated and published in four foreign countries: Portugal (Presença), Italy (Garzanti), Spain (HarperCollins Iberica), and Lithuania (Alma-Littera). It was also a finalist to the Jabuti Prize.

His following novel, TODO O TEMPO DO MUNDO (ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD) was published in Brazil by Astral and in Germany by Rowohlt. VIDA BECKER E A MÁQUINA DE CONTAR HISTÓRIAS (VIDA BECKER AND THE STORYTELLING MACHINE) is the first volume of a middlegrade fantasy trilogy. Maurício Gomyde lives in Brasília with his wife and two teenage daughters.

“Maurício Gomyde makes movies with words.”
— René Sampaio, filmmaker, and director of Faroeste Caboclo (film awarded with the grand award of Brazilian cinema in 2014) Caboclo

VIDA BECKER AND THE STORYTELLING MACHINE (VIDA BECKER E A MÁQUINA DE CONTAR HISTÓRIAS)

This is a delightful middle-grade adventure that follows the epic journey of protagonist Vida Becker. She will be guided by the hands of great personalities from all over the world through history in a fantastic universe. Their thoughts and a healthy dose of imagination about how those historic characters would act today form the basis of the plot.

“And what if you were chosen to lead the greatest geniuses of humanity in the greatest war in the history of the universe?” In Paramondo, there are over 100 billion human beings who have already passed away on Earth, divided into the Amiables, those who re-live in the Fraternal Territory, and the Dreadfuls, those relegated to live forever in the depths of the Desolate Territory. For thousands of cycles, peace has prevailed, but the Dreadfuls are now on the brink of departing to try to dominate Paramondo.

Fighting alongside the Dreadfuls will be the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte, Mussolini, Genghis Khan, Attila, Leopold II, the most ruthless Viking Clans... For the Amiables, there will be Joan of Arc, Leonardo da Vinci, Leonidas, Musashi, Cleopatra, Bruce Lee, William Wallace, and... the Unique, the only living human being who, as the Revelation foretells, will be taken by the Storytelling Machine to lead them in this true battle of giants. When Vida Becker, the Unique, arrives in Paramondo, everyone is shocked: “She’s just a girl!”. What they don’t know yet is that this is perhaps her greatest power.

Publication/ Status: Published by Qualis (Brazil) in September 2023. [348 pages]

English sample available.

AMAZING! (SURPREENDENTE!)

Pedro Diniz challenged the logic of medicine. After a diagnosis that showed he would go blind in two months, a miracle interrupted the degeneration. He then decided to celebrate embarking on his old passion – the Cinema –, beginning a search for the perfect film. However, things are not always as we expect them to be. Reality ends up playing a prank on him and Pedro discovers he can only move forward with the help of the craziest film crew ever.

Thus, the four fellows begin a journey whose itinerary, like their screenplay, will be written by fate. This is a story about the infinite value of friendship, true love, and the chances of redemption that life hides, even on the perfect road.

Publication/ Status: by Intrínseca (Brazil) in September 2015; Presença (Portugal) in 2016; Spain (HC Iberica), and Alma Littera (Lithuania), in 2017. Sold to Garzanti (Italy).

ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD (TODO O TEMPO DO MUNDO)

How much do happiness and sadness determine the course of our lives?

Vitor Pickett travels through time. Seconds, minutes, hours, days… He cannot control it. He relives the past whenever he surpasses his limits of “minimum genuine happiness” and jumps to the future whenever he goes beyond his limits of “minimum genuine sadness”. Is it a gift or a curse? He has given up on that question. He cannot figure out the end but there is one thing he is sure of: his love for Amanda was the very beginning. Amanda, an old classmate, has always wanted to write children’s books and travel the world. However, since she saw her parents killed in the 1996 attack on the US Embassy, in Kenya, it is like time has stopped. Fear, depression, and sadness made her feel that after the explosion nothing could ever be right. Years later, Vitor is a recluse guy, owner of a winery, which produces some of the most awarded sparkling wines in Brazil.

Every time it is painful to remember Amanda is dead by the attack. Years later, Amanda is a manager at a bookstore in Buenos Aires, married to an influential Argentinian congressman. Every time it is painful to realize that her life, perfect in the eyes of other people, is not at all what she wants. One night is enough to change everything… And each of the happy and sad feelings reborn from an unexpected reunion will strike their lives. Will Vitor tell Amanda his secret? Will he finally discover why he travels in time? And will Amanda face her ghosts and tell Vitor who she truly is? The answers depend on Vitor subverting, even more, the insane logic of his life, being able to change a past moment as never before.

Publication/Status: by Astral Cultural (Brazil) in August 2018 and by Rowohlt (Germany) in September 2019. [352 pages]

BETTER DAYS FOREVER (DIAS MELHORES PARA SEMPRE)

Here is the story of Bruno and Micaela. Bruno, a handsome and intelligent surfer, is one of the most desirable young men in medical school. Micaela identifies herself as “the girl with the gift of invisibility.“ She’s the typical bland geek wearing glasses. The plot takes place over four years. On a trip to Hawaii, Bruno lost his leg in an accident at sea, and Micaela came into his life to help him overcome the difficulties. An unlikely romance rises between the two who had never spoken to each other, even being classmates in college. Then, in a car accident, both going down Serra do Rio do Rastro, considered the most spectacular road in the world, a piece of the prosthesis replacing Bruno’s leg hits Micaela in her head.

As a consequence of this unfortunate event, she develops the strangest disorder of the human brain: Prosopagnosia or “face blindness“. The person with this condition cannot recognize faces, not even his or her own face in the mirror. It is, therefore, time for Bruno to give the “Invisible Girl“ the affection she gave him and to prove that love can overcome the most difficult situations.

Publication/Status: Self-published in 2013.