Capitães de Areia

EXCERPT - CAPTAINS OF THE SANDS: JORGE AMADO

As the most famous Brazilian novelist, who died on 6 August 2001 aged 88, Jorge Amado was a living legend. He enchanted his readers in Brazil and throughout the world as “the Magician of Bahia” for more than six decades. His novels have been translated into 48 languages and have asserted themselves reliably on the best-seller lists of 53 countries, where Amado is often more famous than local authors.

Amado was born in 1912 on a cacao plantation in the Brazilian state of Bahia. He attended a Jesuit school, and as early as the age of 15 started writing for a newspaper. His first novel Carnival Country was printed in 1931 when he was 19.
The contrast between the poor and rich was a dominant theme in Amados early works. “I personally experienced the drama of the conquest of the rain forests, I heard the advocates voices in the outrageous trials of the large landowners. As a child I was splattered by my father’s own blood when he got shot in an ambush”, he recollects. Amado became a supporter of communism and spent some time in prison. He had to go into exile twice, and lived temporarily in France where he became a friend of Jean-Paul Sartre, Bertolt Brecht and Anna Seghers. In the mid-fifties Amado turned his back on communism - he’d become disillusioned by the revelations of the Stalin crimes. “ I discovered that I can be more useful to mankind as a writer than by spending my time with politics”, he said. His works became lighter and more humorous. Critics accused him of romanticising poverty: Amado completely rejected such accusations.
Amado’s favourite writers were Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. Their lively style was exemplary for Amado. “Like the works of these writers, my books are full of the smell, taste and blood of my country”, he said. And continues: “I’m not James Joyce. In my books the people are the winners. My message is hope, not doubt.”

The figments of Amado’s fantasy already live with us: Jubiabá and Antonio Balduino, Guma and Esmeralda and leading the way Pedro Bala, the leader in Captains of the Sands, the legendary gang of abandoned kids in the Brazilian capital who fight together to survive and live the adventurous lives of outlaws. This book, as well as Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon, belongs to the most famous of Amado’s 30 books. Despite being written over half a century
ago, this early work is still contemporary and fresh and, like most of Jorge Amado’s novels, still finds new readers today…