Driving home, law student Paulo passes a figure at the side of the road. The indigenous girl stands in the heavy rain, as if waiting for something. Paulo gives her a lift to her family's roadside camp.

Through sudden shifts in the characters' lives, this novel takes in the whole story: telling of love, loss and family, it spans the worlds of São Paulo's rich kids and dispossessed Guarani Indians along Brazil's highways. One man escapes into an immigrant squatter's life in London, while another's performance activism leads to unexpected fame on Youtube.

Written from the gut, Nowhere People is a raw and passionate classic in the making about our need for a home. It won the 2012 Machado de Assis Prize, awarded by the Brazilian National Library, and was shortlisted for a number of other major Brazilian prizes, including the Portugal Telecom, the Jabuti, the São Paulo Literature and Bravo! prizes.

Paulo Scott was born in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1966 and grew up in a working class area. At university, Scott was an active member of the student political movement and he took part in Brazil's re-democratization process. He also translates from English.