bA roiling chronicle of motherhood and colonization from a writer who alternates between a dramatic, high-octave style and a terse and humorous frankness Sheila Heti pRecipient of the 2021 Cames Prize, the most important award for literature in the Portuguese languageb pA potent whirl of history, mythology, and grapevine chatter, iThe Joyful Cry of the Partridgei absorbs readers into its many hiding places and along the wandering paths of its principal characters, whose stark words will stay with you long after the journey is done. pNo one knows where Maria des Dores came from. Did she ride in on the armored spines of crocodiles, was she carried many miles in the jaws of fish pThe only clear fact is that she is here, sitting naked in the river bordering a town where nothing ever happens. pThe townspeople murmur restlessly that she is possessed by perverse impulses. They interpret her arrival as an omen of crop failure or, in more hopeful tones, a sign that womankind will soon seize pow