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Ana Paula Maia (born 1977) is a Brazilian writer and screenwriter.

She graduated in computer science and communication science.^[1] Maia's first book, O Habitante das falhas subterrâneas was published in 2003. She is the author of the Saga dos Brutos (Saga of Brutes) trilogy, which began with the short novels Entre rinhas de cachorros e porcos abatidos (Between Dog Fights and Hog Slaughter) and O Trabalho sujo dos outros (The Dirty Work of Others) —both published in a single volume— and concluded with the novel Carvão animal (Carbo animalis).^[2]

Maia was born in Nova Iguaçu, in the state of Rio de Janeiro; her mother is a literature teacher and her father is a bar owner. Maia grew up with books in her childhood, but lost interest in them in her adolescence, playing in a punk rock band during her teenage years.^[3]

Maia's writing is influenced by Dostoevsky, Edgar Allan Poe, Quentin Tarantino and Sergio Leone's films, TV series and pulp literature, among others. The main characters of her narratives are men, people working in essential and hazardous jobs, such as garbage collectors, coal miners and slaughterhouse workers.^[4][5]

She stated having no interest in writing about women, having said: "I am already a woman twenty-four hours a day. I want to be a man a little bit, a little rough. (...) I want to do something different. And I can only do that in literature, because in this life I won't be able to do that, I don't have that possibility.."^[6]

Maia won the São Paulo Prize for Literature for Best Novel twice, with Assim na Terra como embaixo da Terra, in 2018 and Enterre Seus Mortos, in 2019.^[7]

• O habitante das falhas subterrâneas (2003)
• A Guerra dos Bastardos (2007)
• Saga dos Brutos trilogy (2009-11)
  • Vols. 1 and 2: Entre rinhas de cachorros e porcos abatidos and O trabalho sujo dos outros (2009). Between Dog Fights and Hog Slaughter and The Dirty Work of Others
  • Vol. 3: Carvão Animal (2011). Carbo animalis
• De Gados e Homens (2013). Of Cattle and Men, trans. Zoë Perry (Charco Press, 2023)
• Assim na Terra como embaixo da Terra (2017)
• Enterre Seus Mortos (2018)
• De cada quinhentos uma alma (2021)

• Saga of Brutes, trans. Alexandra Joy Forman (Dalkey Archive Press, 2016). ISBN 978-1628971460

• Author's page at Companhia das Letras (in Portuguese)
• page at Editora Record (in Portuguese)^{[permanent dead link‍]}