Our Brazilian Competition

The latest runaway best-seller in Brazil is the autobiography of a young prostitute, Raquel Pacheco, a.k.a. Bruna the Surfer Girl. The book is called The Sweet Venom of the Scorpion: The Diary of a Call Girl and here’s what Reuters has to say: “In just over a month, it has sold some 30,000 copies and is already in its third edition — a huge success in a country where only a fraction of the population reads books. It also ranks third on Brazil’s bestseller list for nonfiction books, neck and neck with international hits like Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.” It doesn’t appear as if an English translation is yet available; am guessing agents are circling now.