Storytel has collaborated with Pottermore Publishing to release the first audiobook in the Harry Potter series, narrated by actor Ícaro Silva.
The Brazilian audio launch of Harry Potter e a Pedra Filosofal comes twenty years after the publication of the first physical book in the series by Editora Rocco. It arrived on Storytel in the first week of December. The other audiobooks in the series will be released month by month, until June 2021.
Ícaro Silva began recording the books in June this year. He grew up in a favela on the outskirts of São Paulo. He started his acting career at the age of six and is also a writer of three children’s books himself – two of which he published by the age of ten! One of the most prominent actors of his generation, he has appeared in twenty soap operas, films and plays, and picked up nominations for ten awards along the way – winning three of them.
Ícaro’s most recent part is the lead role of Captain in the Netflix series Coisa Mais Linda, charting the rise of Bossa Nova and female empowerment in Rio in 1959. There is a second season forthcoming. Before narrating Harry Potter, he also recently dubbed the voice of Simba in The Lion King.
Ícaro says, ‘It was magical and synchronous to be asked to narrate Harry Potter. I do not have pictures and videos of these memories, when I already loved the work, but I have in my memory how much Harry Potter was very present in my life. It feels like I’m closing a cycle that I didn’t even know had started. Being able to tell this story to new generations and sharing it with the generations that already know it – it is as if the universe has presented me with a slice of this story. I believe it is a gift of life, this achievement, of how the things you love reach you.’
Storytel launched the new audiobook by inviting three content creators and journalists from the Harry Potter fandom to interview Ícaro. Recorded during the pandemic, Ícaro also documented the recording process in behind-the-scenes footage.
‘It is very exciting for Storytel Brasil to be able to make available in Portuguese the Harry Potter stories, which have already traveled the world, now in audio,’ says André Palme, Country Manager of Storytel in Brazil.
Harry Potter e a Pedra Filosofal is available exclusively through Storytel Brasil now.
