the thread: Exploring Days of Bossa Nova with Ines Rodrigues > Likes and Comments

When you were writing the scenes set in São Paulo, did you rely more on memory, research, imagination, or a mixture of all three? Was there anything you had to research that surprised you?

After reading the book, I’d love to explore some of the ideas and context behind it more deeply. Have you put together anything like a Roadmap for readers?
Has anyone added your book to Goodreads Listopia yet? I’m curious whether readers can discover it there.

After everything Felipe, his family, and São Paulo go through, what do you hope readers carry with them when they close the final page? And now that Days of Bossa Nova has also returned to Brazil in Portuguese, has your understanding of the book or of the people you wrote about changed at all?

The novel contains both intimate family experiences and events connected to Brazil's wider history. Did you ever find yourself having to choose between what served the family's story and what was historically accurate?

If you could preserve one sensory detail from the São Paulo of Felipe’s childhood for a reader who has never visited Brazil- one sound, smell, taste, or image- what would you choose?

The book was written in English but later published in Portuguese in Brazil. Were there words, expressions, emotions, or cultural nuances that felt different when the story returned to Portuguese?

Now that you have had more time away from the writing of Days of Bossa Nova, which character do you find yourself thinking about most often, and what do you think keeps bringing that character back to you?

Also Ines, have you ever created a Roadmap to accompany the book?

Have you had a chance to explore Listopia for the book yet, particularly lists connected with Brazilian literature, historical fiction, or books about São Paulo?

There are moments when humor appears alongside grief and hardship. How important was it for you to allow humor into a story dealing with poverty, loss, political repression, and complicated family relationships?

I’d love to explore some of the historical and cultural details in the novel further. Is there a Roadmap available for readers?

What was the first scene or image from Days of Bossa Nova that came to you before you knew exactly what the novel would become?

The kitchen radio is such a memorable detail from Felipe’s childhood. Why did you choose a radio as the object through which the outside world first enters his family's home?

How did you decide where to draw the line between what should be explained to readers unfamiliar with Brazil and what should simply be allowed to exist naturally within the story?

Your characters live through several generations of social change. Which change in Brazilian society was the most important for you to capture through the Navarra family?

I’d love to explore some of the historical and cultural details in the novel further. Is there a Roadmap available for readers?

Was there a character you initially misunderstood while writing the novel, only to discover later that you had been looking at them from the wrong perspective?

Have you considered putting together a Roadmap that readers could use after finishing the book to explore its themes and background in greater depth and also I was curious if readers can currently find Days of Bossa Nova through relevant Listopia lists on Goodreads?
If No, you can reach out to our moderator to put you through.

The novel moves between 2009 and the Navarra family story beginning in 1941. Why was it important for you to let readers encounter Felipe as an older man before gradually uncovering the life that brought him there? What did you want readers to wonder about him?

Welcome, Ines! We’re so happy to have you here with us at Around the World in 80 Books, and we’re excited to have the opportunity to discuss Days of Bossa Nova with you.
Felipe is charming, funny, ambitious, flawed, and sometimes morally troubling. At what point did you realize that he could not simply be a “good” or “bad” man, but had to remain complicated? And did he ever surprise you while you were writing him?

You're welcome Ines! If São Paulo could speak to Felipe throughout the novel, what do you think the city would say to him? Would it be encouraging him, seducing him, warning him or perhaps all three?

Felipe dreams of escaping poverty and becoming successful, but his rise comes with a price. Do you think Felipe actually achieves the dream he imagined as a young boy, or does success ultimately give him something very different from what he wanted?

Emilia’s choices toward the end of the novel are particularly intriguing. Without giving away anything for readers who may still be discovering the story, what do you think Emilia understands about Felipe that Felipe may never fully understand about himself?

Love takes very different forms in Felipe’s life through Valentina and Emilia. What do you think Felipe is truly searching for in his relationships- is it love, security, admiration, freedom, or something he himself does not fully understand?

You grew up in São Paulo and later left Brazil to live abroad. Did leaving the city change the way you remembered and understood it? And did distance perhaps make you see São Paulo more clearly when you returned to it through fiction?

Your father’s stories found their way into Felipe’s voice, even though Felipe is not a portrait of your father. When you realized that your father’s storytelling voice had become part of Felipe, did that change the way you wrote him?

You worked as a radio reporter and host, and radio becomes such an important part of Felipe’s world. What does radio give a storyteller that other forms of communication cannot? And did your own experience behind the microphone influence the way you imagined Felipe’s voice?

Welcome, everyone, to our discussion of *Days of Bossa Nova* by Ines Rodrigues!

We’re very pleased to have Ines joining us here on Around the World in 80 Books to talk with readers about her novel. Set primarily in São Paulo and spanning several decades, *Days of Bossa Nova* follows Felipe Navarra from his childhood in a poor family to his pursuit of success as a radio presenter during the glamorous era of Bossa Nova and radionovelas. Along the way, the story brings together family, love, ambition, guilt, personal choices, and the social and political changes taking place in Brazil.

What makes the novel especially interesting is the strong presence of São Paulo itself. Ines grew up in the city, and her own memories, her experience as a radio journalist, and stories told by her father all became part of the inspiration behind the book. The novel also moves between different periods of Felipe’s life, gradually bringing his family story and the consequences of his choices into focus.

We’re looking forward to exploring these different layers of the novel with Ines and hearing more about the inspiration behind the story, the characters, São Paulo, and the world of Brazilian radio and Bossa Nova.

Ines, before we begin, we’d love for you to introduce yourself to our readers and tell us a little about yourself, your writing, and what brought you to *Days of Bossa Nova*.

And to our readers, please feel free to join the conversation, share your thoughts about the book, and ask Ines any questions that come to mind as we discuss the story.

Welcome, Ines! We’re happy to have you with us.

Diane wrote: "Welcome, everyone, to our discussion of *Days of Bossa Nova* by Ines Rodrigues!

We’re very pleased to have Ines joining us here on Around the World in 80 Books to talk with readers about her novel..."

Hello everyone!
I'm really happy to be part of this group with my book about Brazil, more specifically about São Paulo, my hometown.

Before I start answering all the questions about the book, here's a little about myself and how this book came to life. I was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil. I worked as a journalist and radio host for a few years before I left the country. I lived in Italy, in London, then finally settled down in New York many years ago.
As it was difficult to keep working as a journalist at that time, I started to pursue my old dream of writing fiction. I had the idea for this book, but I was terrified of writing it in English, which is my second language. I took courses and workshops, I met great mentors who encouraged me, and finally I finished it and published the book in the US. A version in Portuguese was recently published in Brazil as well, years after the publication in English.

I'm so happy to see so many questions about my book—please send more!
I'll be glad to discuss the story and the characters with you all. Thank you for choosing Days of Bossa Nova. I hope you enjoy it and discover more about my native Brazil and São Paulo through the characters.

The book takes readers through enormous changes in Brazil- from the 1940s through the Bossa Nova era and into the period of military dictatorship and beyond. How did you balance telling one family’s intimate story with the much larger story of a changing country?

If Felipe had been given the opportunity to make one major decision differently, which choice do you think would have changed the greatest part of his life, and would he actually have chosen differently?

Is Days of Bossa Nova currently featured on any Goodreads Listopia lists?

There is a fascinating tension between memory and truth in a family story. As Felipe looks back over decades of his life, how much do you think he is telling the story as it actually happened, and how much is shaped by the way he needs to remember it?

You described the novel as, first and foremost, a declaration of love for São Paulo. Yet you also portray its poverty, violence, danger, inequality, and contradictions. Can loving a place honestly require us to show its most uncomfortable sides?