Klester Cavalcanti

Klester Cavalcanti is one of the best investigative reporters in Brazil and has worked in the country’s largest vehicles, such as Veja, Estadão, and IstoÉ. Born in 1969 in Pernambuco, Brazil, he has received national and international awards, such as Best Environmental Report in South America, given by Reuters and the ICUN (The International Union for Conservation of Nature), and the Natali Prize, the most important Journalism for Human Rights Award in the world. He also received the Vladimir Herzog Human Rights Award and is three times winner of Jabuti Literature Prize, the most respected award in Brazilian literature – with the books WIDOWS OF THE LAND (VIÚVAS DA TERRA), 2004; THE NAME OF DEATH, 2006; and DAYS OF HELL IN SYRIA (DIAS DE INFERNO NA SÍRIA), 2012.
The latter two titles and THE NAME OF DEATH are being made into films. The Name of Death is a super production from Globo Films and Fernando Meirelles (director of City of God and the opening of Rio Olympic Games), with Henrique Goldman as director and a great cast, scheduled for release in mid-2018 and aiming the international market. A fourth book THE LADY OF LIBERTY (A DAMA DA LIBERDADE), the biography of a woman dedicated to free contemporary slaves in Brazilian agriculture industries, is also being adapted to the movies under the direction of Bruno Barreto.
THE NAME OF DEATH (O NOME DA MORTE)
After killing, Julio Santana prays ten Hail Maries and 20 Our Father prayers to ask God for forgiveness. He’s afraid of ending up in hell. Without ideologies, Júlio kills because that’s his job. A profession he learned in his family, with his uncle Cicero, who gave him a “job” when he was just 17. In 35 years of career, Júlio has killed exact 492 people, keeping a record of all his “jobs” in a notepad whose cover has an image of Donald Duck. To portray the life of this intriguing character, journalist and writer Klester Cavalcanti makes the killer breath and haunt the reader with his coldness. In THE NAME OF DEATH, all the characters are real and have their real names revealed, especially, Julio Santana, whose dramas, dreams, passions, and weaknesses also appear in the story. Thus, the reader learns that the same individual who makes a living taking the lives of other people is a good son, loving father and faithful and loving husband. And all this in a trajectory that is indistinguishable from that of Brazil’s, through two important episodes of the recent history of the country: the Araguaia Guerrilla Movement and the mining of Serra Pelada. For the first time, a hitman shows his face and tells his life’s story. More than a condemnation of impunity and the denudation of the gears of the addicted Brazilian machine, THE NAME OF DEATH tells the amazing life of a boy who had everything to become a fisherman – like his father and his grandfather -. but has become the largest professional killer known to the world.
Klester Cavalcanti is a thoroughbred journalist with a Capotean gift of transforming hard-news into high quality literature. On THE NAME OF DEATH, he confirms this talent giving us a shocking and surprisingly real narrative. – Wagner Moura (Narcos and Elite Squad actor)

THE NAME OF DEATH is among the very best non-fiction literature in the world. The experience of reading it is equal to immersing in an excellent novel. Klester creates vivid pictures, builds real landscapes and inserts the reader into the mind of someone we should consider a monster: a hit-man. Then, suddenly, we see ourselves wanting the killer Julio Santana to escape his pursuers. – Fernando Meirelles (filmmaker, director of City of God)


Publication/Status: To be republished by Planeta (tie-in edition) in August 2018. Published by Transit (Germany) in 2013. To be published by Métailié (France) in February 2018, and by Seven Stories Press (USA) in April 2018. Sold to Muza (Poland), Presença (Portugal), Peninsula/ Planeta (Spain) and Allen & Unwin (ANZ). English audio rights sold to Blackstone (USA). The movie was shown during Rio Film Festival in November 2017 and will be commercially released in 2018. [245 pages]