Victor Doblas Heringer was born on March 27, 1988, to a family of
German descent in
Rio de Janeiro, in the
bairro (neighborhood) of
São Cristóvão, but was raised in
Nova Friburgo. Graduated in
Literature from the
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, before publishing his first books he worked at the
Moreira Salles Institute and at the
Fundação Casa de Rui Barbosa after obtaining a scholarship for the latter. Between 2014 and 2017 he had a weekly
column in the magazine
Pessoa, and also periodically wrote for the
Pernambuco-based magazine
Continente, among many others. Heringer published his debut novel,
Cidade Impossível, through Editora Multifoco in 2009, which was followed by 2011's poetry collection
Automatógrafo. In 2012, his critically acclaimed second novel
Glória, about a "
plastic artist searching for an impossible woman", came out, for which he was awarded the prestigious
Prêmio Jabuti the following year. Heringer's third novel,
O Amor dos Homens Avulsos, was released in 2016 through
Companhia das Letras, and tells the story "of two boys who fall in love with each other, but have their passion interrupted by a tragedy"; it was nominated for the
Prêmio Rio de Literatura, the
São Paulo Prize for Literature and the
Prêmio Oceanos. He claims that the fictional
carioca neighborhood of Queím, in which the novel takes place, was inspired by the real-life neighborhood of
Del Castilho, where he used to visit his grandmother when he was a kid, as well as by his childhood memories of Rio's North Zone as a whole. Heringer's final work to be published during his lifetime was a translation to Portuguese of
Loung Ung's 2000 memoir
First They Killed My Father, which came out in Brazil in 2017 through
HarperCollins. The same year, he was included by
Forbes Brasil in their "
UNDER 30 in Literature" list, and one of his poems was featured in the anthology
É Agora como Nunca, edited by singer
Adriana Calcanhotto. Throughout most of his life Heringer struggled with
depression. On March 7, 2018, three weeks prior to his 30th birthday, he was found dead near his apartment in
Copacabana following an apparent suicide by
self-defenestration. On June 9, 2018, his publisher Companhia das Letras announced that, as a tribute to him, they would re-issue all of his works; they had already re-published his first novel
Glória some months prior, and a volume of his complete poetry, containing previously unpublished pieces and originally announced for a 2019 release, eventually came out in 2024. In one of his final interviews, from October 2017, he stated that he was working on a fourth novel, scheduled to be published in 2018 and inspired by his travels across
South America,
India and
Indonesia, but it is unknown if he was able to finish it prior to his death. it was nominated for another Prêmio Jabuti the following year. An English translation of
O Amor dos Homens Avulsos was published by
Peirene Press on July 11, 2023, following an earlier translation to Italian by Safarà Editore. The English translation was a finalist for the 2023
John Leonard Prize given by the
National Book Critics Circle. In 2024, Peirene published an English translation of
Glória. In early 2025,
O Amor dos Homens Avulsos was translated into French for
Éditions Denoël. In a 2024 interview for newspaper
O Globo, screenwriter
Maria Camargo expressed her desire to adapt
O Amor dos Homens Avulsos into a full-length film. ==Bibliography==