🙏 From pulpit to paperback

CULTURE

Will devotional books create devoted readers?

Religion and publishing have never been strangers in Brazil. Home to the world’s largest Catholic population and now the site of the fastest religious shift in modern history — toward Pentecostalism — the country has long been fertile ground for theological literature. But in recent years, religion has drawn great attention within Brazil’s literary landscape and consumer behavior in general.

According to Renato Fleischner, member of the board of directors of the National Union of Book Publishers, annual sales of devotional books in Brazil hit around 3,000,000 copies — and that’s not even counting the significant portion sold within religious communities, which often go untracked by conventional market systems.

The growth over the past decade has been remarkable, Fleischner told The Brazilian Report, even during periods of major turbulence for the publishing industry.

The latest Nielsen yearly assessment of the literary market shows that religious titles accounted for 17% of all book sales in Brazil in 2024, up from 11% in 2006. Roughly 54.4 million print books were sold in the country in 2023 — for comparison’s sake, almost 440 million were sold in France (which has a population more than three times smaller than Brazil’s).

The success of these titles is part of a broader trend: books with spiritual overtones, often rooted in the Bible, are now reaching well beyond churches and Christian bookstores — and into mainstream culture…

🔒 This was a free preview; the rest is behind our paywall

Don’t miss out! Upgrade to unlock full access. The process takes only seconds with Apple Pay or Stripe. Become a member.

Why you should subscribe

We’re here for readers who want to truly understand Brazil and Latin America — a region too often ignored or misrepresented by the international media.

Since 2017, our reporting has been powered by paid subscribers. They’re the reason we can keep a full-time team of 10 journalists across Brazil and Argentina, delivering sharp, independent coverage every day.

If you value our work, subscribing is the best way to keep it going — and growing.

Our annual plan goes for just USD 0.52 a day — but the value you'll get back from it is truly immeasurable. So… what’s stopping you from joining right now?