Noemi Jaffe

Noemi Jaffe
Noemi Jaffe, in an interview for TV ALERJ's program Perfil, in August 2021
Born	1962 São Paulo, Brazil
Occupation	novelist poet cronista literary critic
Alma mater	University of São Paulo

Jaffe was born in 1962 in São Paulo from Serbian Jewish parents and was raised in the Bom Retiro neighborhood.[1] She became a PhD in Brazilian Literature at the University of São Paulo[2] at the end of her teaching career. She had written a thesis on Antonio Cicero's poetry.[3]

Jaffe teaches creative writing at Casa do Saber and Instituto Vera Cruz and collaborates for newspaper Folha de São Paulo as literary critic. Her career turnaround happened in 2005 when she published a book of poetry. The book's reception raised her ambitions and she devoted the majority of her efforts to writing.[3]

Her 2012 book O que os cegos estão sonhando which translates as "What are the Blind Men Dreaming" is based on the diary of her mother. Her mother's parents were murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp and her mother survived to write a diary in Sweden that Noemi and her daughter translated.[4]

Her books have been translated from Portuguese into a dozen languages.[3][5]

• Todas as coisas pequenas (Hedra, 2005)
• Quando nada está acontecendo (Martins Fontes, 2011)
• A verdadeira história do alfabeto (Companhia das Letras, 2012)
• O que os cegos estão sonhando? (Editora 34, 2012) - In English: What are the Blind Men Dreaming? (Deep Vellum, 2016)[6]
• Írisz: as orquídeas (Companhia das Letras, 2015)
• O livro dos começos (Cosac Naify, 2016)
• Não está mais aqui quem falou (Companhia das Letras, 2017)
• O que ela sussurra (Companhia das Letras, 2020) [7]
• Lili- Novela de um luto (Companhia das Letras, 2021)[8]

• - Writer's site
• quando nada está acontecendo - Writer's blog
• Conversation with Brazilian Author Noemi Jaffe at Library of Congress on May 08, 2017.