Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Fiction Award 2024

Longlisted for both the HSS and SALA awards

where the only cemetery is run by old Mateus and his dog, God. Mateus’s eyes aren’t so good these days which is why he has been burying bodies in the wrong graves and is also why, while out walking with God, he accidentally trips on a young homeless girl. On a whim, Mateus decides to appoint the girl as his apprentice. Novo, who has been sleeping on the street with a dog-eared copy of The Savage Detectives as a pillow, is determined to reorganise the cemetery, but she will have to hurry; buried awry, divorced from their names, the ghosts of Vivo are accumulating, unable to proceed to the afterlife without knowing who they are. Also, someone, or something, is on the loose, killing people and closing in on the one person who can make things right.

Welcome to Vivo

Erudite and wise, magical and quirky, Sven Axelrad's debut novel is an enchanting adventure that explores what our names mean to us and who we are without them