Corpo Seco

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BSU Lecturer explores the everyday and the spiritual in her new book

Wednesday, 16 October, 2024

It’s a classic nightmare. You wake up and discover you’re not alive, but you’re not really dead... 

A new novel by Nadia Maddy, Programme Leader for Health and Social Care at Bath Spa University London, explores this, as well as themes of history and redemption by blending Brazilian mysticism with African folklore. 

Corpo Seco tells the story of Faron, a slave working on a plantation in Brazil, who accidentally kills his mother in an explosion of rage. Swiftly falling to the retribution of the other slaves, he is brutally punished, executed and buried, and is shocked when he wakes transformed into a cursed being of myth – the Corpo Seco. 

The Corpo Seco – literally ‘dry corpse’ – is a legend from Brazilian folklore describing a person who has committed a sin so grave that, after they die, neither God nor the Devil will accept them. The earth itself rejects their body and, reduced to a dry husk of leathery skin and bones, they’re doomed to wander during the night, terrifying anyone who sees them. 

Searching for a way to free himself from this curse, Faron decides to seek redemption by fleeing Brazil and arrives on the Gold Coast in West Africa. 

Nadia said her inspiration for the book comes from different places, including the Tabom people in Ghana – descendants of a group of former slaves in Brazil who went back to resettle in West Africa in the late 1800s. Nadia is herself a descendant of the Krio/Creole people in Sierra Leone, who went back to Africa from England, North America and the Caribbean. With the help of the locals and the British, they built the city of Freetown – now the capital of Sierra Leone. 

Nadia said: 

“As a Krio, I have always been fascinated by this intricate tapestry of identities that shape our culture. My grandfather on my mother's side – his family came from Jamaica – went to Nova Scotia to take the ship ride back to Sierra Leone. My grandmother was born in Angola but raised in Sierra Leone and that also makes her a Krio. Because of this heritage I've experienced firsthand the complexities of navigating multiple cultural identities. I was interested in the Ghana thing because I thought we were the only ones who chose to return.” 

Just as the Tabom returned to Africa from Brazil, the myth of the Corpo Seco – and Faron himself – returns to Ghana. Nadia explained that the return of Brazilians to Africa, particularly the Tabom, offers a unique perspective on the enduring power of African traditions, and highlights the resilience of African culture in the face of enslavement and colonization, as well as the concept of preservation through slavery – traditions that originated in Africa, were lost, and have subsequently been re-introduced by former slaves who returned. 

Nadia said: 

“What I’ve done with Corpo Seco is I’ve taken the Brazilian legend and sent it back to Africa, to Ghana. The character in Corpo Seco wants to redeem himself from this curse, and he believes that if he goes back to the mother country, he can redeem himself.” 

Nadia’s passion for writing extends further than her own work; she also founded a creative writing competition for young people in Sierra Leone in 2014. The competition has helped launch the successes of some of its winners, who have gone on to careers at the BBC, or have had their books published in the UK.  

Nadia said that she never ‘started’ writing; she has always been writing ever since she was a child, and her lifelong love of folklore inspires her to explore the ‘everyday’. 

Talking further about what inspires her, she explained: 

“There’s a genre in South America called magical realism – it’s called speculative fiction when it pertains to Africa. And it’s about how we live our lives in parallel to a spiritual realm. It’s something that’s so culturally entrenched that we don’t realise that we live like this, but other people who aren’t part of that culture don’t, and that’s always been interesting to me. My inspiration is from the everyday, and the everyday is always in parallel with things that are spiritual. 

“Sometimes we forget that even though we’re alive and kicking, we can be affected by things that we’re not aware of, that are very much within our realm.” 

A launch event for Corpo Seco will take place on Wednesday 16 October at The Africa Centre, London, from 6pm-9pm, and you can book free tickets.