Brazzil

Tieta, Teresa Batista, Gabriela, Quincas Berro Dágua, Vadinho and Dona Flor. For many of us they are all like family. We heard through their ears, we suffered and enjoyed life with them, we learned to watch the world with other eyes. The man who created all of these people has gone, but his creations, though, live with us for good.
By Alessandra Dalevi

More than 500 characters, unforgettable like Gabriela and known all over the world like Dona Flor are orphans. Jorge Amado created a universe made of “colonels” (Mafia-type bosses), likeable scoundrels, compassionate prostitutes, poor seamen, street kids, winos and all kinds of lowlifes. No other Brazilian author was more respected or more translated overseas. He wrote more than 40 books, some of them translated into 48 languages and published in 52 countries. Thanks to movies and TV novelas (soap operas) his very cinematographic oeuvre made him a household name in Brazil, the worldwide Portuguese-speaking community and Latin America. With his death the post of Brazilian novelist—that writer that symbolizes a country—is vacant.

Jorge Amado died on August 6, four days short of his 89th birthday, but many critics and fellow writers had written his literary obituary several times before. They never forgave him for writing in a style so simple and colloquial that didn’t seem literary enough and for depicting an exotic Brazil some would prefer ignored. The epigraph he used for his second book, Cacau (Cacao), from 1933 could be applied to his life: “A minimum of literature and a maximum of honesty.”

“Zélia, I’m having chest pains,” the writer told his wife while resting at home the day of his death. He was immediately taken to the Aliança, a hospital close to his house, in Salvador, state of Bahia. Amado was back home since July 16 after having spent 22 days in the hospital—he was comatose for a short period—getting treated for hyperglycemia. For more than a decade he was having heart trouble. In 1993 he had his first heart attack. Three years later he was submitted to an angioplasty and in 1994 received a pacemaker.

His last wish was fulfilled. His ashes were spread by Zélia Gattai—the woman who was his wife and with whom he lived for 56 years—under the mango tree the couple planted at their house in Rio Vermelho, a neighborhood in Salvador. This was the same mango tree under which he used to sit with friends to chat and tell stories. Watching the scene were his two children: sociologist João Jorge, 53, and psychologist Paloma, 50.

The author was writing a story about the São Francisco river and was feeling depressed due to his eye problems which were making it hard for him to read and write, despite the help of several magnifying lenses bought by Zélia for him.

Salvador is today populated by Jorge Amado characters. Many of them gave names to streets, squares and lanes. Baianos can walk, play and dance in places like Geni lane, Quincas Borba plaza and Clara dos Anjos street. Pedro Arcanjo and Teresa Batista—the same heroine who became the title of one of Amado’s most beloved books: Teresa Batista, Cansada de Guerra (Tereza Batista: Home from the Wars)—have also become streets in downtown Salvador. There are also bars, hotels, restaurants and other commercial establishments that were named for his characters as well as liquors and food products. Amado’s face has also been a constant presence in newspapers, bookstores and newsstands in Brazil.

In 1984, Irwin Stern, a professor of Portuguese at Columbia University, wrote in The New York Times Book Review: "No other Latin American writer is more genuinely admired by his peers, nor has any other exerted so great a creative influence on the course of Latin American fiction." In 1987, Bantam Books paid $250,000—a record at the time for a foreign-language novel—for the rights to publish Tocaia Grande (Showdown), the story of the settling of Brazil's cacao plantations.

In Salvador or in Paris he wasn’t able to get out without being approached by fans, the same people who believed he deserved a Nobel Prize for literature. His latest production didn’t contribute to his literary stature though. Tieta do Agreste (1977) and Farda Fardão Camisola de Dormir (1979) are minor works. But while he lost some of his faithful readers in recent years he got a new crowd of admirers in those who got acquainted with him for the first time watching adaptations of his books on TV and on the big screen.

"I am a writer who has written about the life of my people, the character of my people," Amado declared a few years ago. "What I can say is that the greatest hero of the Brazilian novel is the Brazilian people."

Amado’s World

Jorge Amado was born on August 10, 1912 on a cocoa farm called Auricídia in the city of Ferradas, Bahia state, but two years later his parents moved to Ilhéus and then eight years after that to Salvador—both also in Bahia. He was raised in the comfort of a middle-class family.

His first book, País do Carnaval (Carnaval Country) was released in 1931 when he was 19 and already living in Rio de Janeiro. The land of Bahia was the setting for this novel, a setting that would be a constant in subsequent books. The theme from this first work—the gulf that separates the rich from the poor—would also be recurrent in his production. País do Carnaval show a young writer divided between religion, politics and literature.

His second novel, Cacau (Cacao), from 1933, portraying workers from the south of Bahia, was banned during the right-wing presidency of Getúlio Vargas, a fascist sympathizer who led Brazil as a dictator from 1930-45 and then as an elected president from 1950-54. Vargas ordered that 1700 copies of his first six novels be burned in Salvador’s central plaza. His political views constantly landed him in jail.

In 1933, the writer married his first wife, Matilde Garcia Rosa with whom he would live until 1944. In 1934, Suor (Sweat)—a social novel set in Salvador, presenting a gallery of types including prostitutes and salesmen—was released. With Jubiabá (1935), Amado got great reviews and the book was translated into French and Spanish. The next year he published Mar Morto (Dead Sea), which was awarded the Graça Aranha Prize, an award from the Academia Brasileira de Letras. As a youngster, Amado became an active member of the Communist party. He was sent to jail after the 1935 Intentona Comunista, an unsuccessful attempt by the communist party to overthrow the government in Brazil.

In 1937 he publishes Capitães da Areia (Sand Captains), a tale about street kids. Thanks to his affiliation to the Communist Party with its international network, he soon became a global author before the word globalization took the world by storm.

Persecuted by the Vargas administration he went to Argentina in 1942. Amado was 32 in 1944 when his masterpiece Terras do Sem Fim (The Violent Land) was published. It is a portrait of the cacao plantations of the Brazilian Northeast peopled with poor and exploited workers. Still in Argentina, Amado went to live with Zélia Gattai in 1945. Since there was no divorce in Brazil, he was only able to officially marry her in 1978.

With the ousting of dictator Getúlio Vargas in 1945, the author went back to Brazil and was elected deputado federal (House representative) by the PCB (Partido Comunista Brasileiro—Brazilian Communist Party). His stay in Brazil, however, was short lived. When his party was once more outlawed in 1947, he again went into exile, this time to Paris. Then France considered him persona non grata and he left to live in the Writers’ Union Castle in Dobris, in the former Czechoslovakia. There he wrote O Mundo da Paz, uma ode a Lênin e Stálin (The World of Peace, an Ode to Lenin and Stalin.

In Europe he made several friends who would greatly mark his career: existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), political activist Louis Aragon (1897-1982) and Spanish painter Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Amado considered Paris his second home and in 1985 received the Legion of Honor from then president François Mitterrand. In 1951 Amado went to Moscow to accept the Lenin International Peace Prize.

New Times

By 1956 he had quit the Party, though, disillusioned at the revelation of Stalin’s crimes. He adopted what he used to call “utopian socialism”, but never formally renounced communism. In a 1975 interview, he declared: "There came a time when I had to choose active politics or being a full-time writer. Political activities were taking so much time, and there were lots of politicians but few writers."

Amado’s work became less and less political getting an increasing dose of lust and zest for life. Some of his old comrades and fans would never forgive him for what they considered betrayal, but his popularity zoomed. Amado commented once that “my books are full of the smell, taste and blood of my country."

Gabriela Cravo e Canela (Gabriela, Clove and Cinammon), arguably his best-known novel, appeared in 1958, after a four-year period in which the author didn’t write any book. It tells the story of a pretty and sensual backwoods girl who is taken as servant by a bar owner and who ends up becoming his lover. Talking about the critics who see in Gabriela a break of the author with his past, Amado told an interviewer: “There is this idea that I wrote Gabriela because I had left the Communist Party. This is not true. I would have written this novel anyway because I believe that Gabriela represents continuity in my work.”

The book was a huge success. In a land where books selling as little as 3000 copies are considered a bestseller, Gabriela sold 20,000 copies in 15 days and reached 20 editions in three years. In 1983, Gabriela became a movie with Sonia Braga and Marcelo Mastroianni, who played a role of Arab immigrant Nacib, but the film didn’t work and the public stayed away.

Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos, which had been made into a movie in 1975, grossed $20 million in the US becoming Brazil’s biggest box office in the United States. Once again Braga was the movie’s star. Flor lives a menage à trois with her lascivious dead husband and the much more behaved new one. In Brazil, the movie directed by Bruno Barreto was seen by 12 million people, a record for a national movie that hasn’t been broken since.

Other adaptations of Amado’s work for the movies fared even worse. Renowned director Nelson Pereira dos Santos tried his hand at two adaptations, Tenda dos Milagres (1977) and Jubiabá (1986), but neither one was a success. The work of French director Marcel Camus with Pastores da Noite in 1975 was barely noticed.

Amado’s work has been constantly used by Brazilian TV. Right now, Rede Globo is presenting Porto dos Milagres (Port of Miracles), a story loosely based in two of the author’s books: Mar Morto and A Descoberta da América pelos Turcos. In 1961, now extinct TV Tupi was the first to adapt a book by Amado to be shown on TV. With the help of his wife Zélia, the writer lent a hand to transform Gabriela into a telenovela (soap opera). A much more memorable adaptation would occur in 1975 by the hands of Walter George Durst for Globo TV. Other TV adaptations came. Terras do Sem Fim (1982) and Tieta (1990) were made into novelas and Tenda dos Milagres (1985) and Tereza Batista (1990) became miniseries.

Amado wasn’t enthusiastic about TV and cinema adaptations of his books. In a 1992 interview he stated: “I rarely watch these adaptations. The adaptation of a book to any other medium is always violence. They destroy things that are very important in the novel. I think that the adaptation is valid only if it is not a pastiche, but a recreation. Anyway, as bad as adaptations might be, even if they distort and modify, they always pass something of what you wanted to transmit to the reader when you wrote the book.”

A Major Author

After chastising the Academia Brasileira de Letras (Brazilian Academy of Letters) for many years, he became one of the so-called immortals in 1961. He mentioned his past criticism of the literary body in his inauguration speech without any remorse: “I come to your illustrious company with the serene satisfaction of having being an adversary of this institution during that phase in life when we necessarily and obligatorily are against the established and the definitive.

The author was an enthusiast and a high official of Candomblé. His two homes in Salvador were filled with images of deities of this spirit religion brought to Brazil by slaves from Africa. Candomblé rituals and beliefs are a constant presence in Amado’s books. He used to say, “In Bahia, magic is a powerful facet of reality. Here we are all spellbinders of sorts." And in another occasion: “We are not this or that, we are everything: white, black, Indian. That’s what makes our singularity and gives us a real importance.”

When he talked about the work of writing, Amado used to say that the origin of his talent was a mystery for him. All he knew is that he was born to write and that was enough for him. Amado never got used to the computer. Until the end he continued using his old typewriter.

He classified literature in families. For him, François Rabelais, the French satirist who died in 1553, was the family man to whom he most felt close. Then there were a series of other influent writers, including Spaniard Miguel de Cervantes, British Charles Dickens, Russian Maxim Gorky, and Brazilians Gregório de Mattos and José de Alencar.

Amado himself said once that he would like to be remembered as a guy from Bahia who was sensual and romantic: “I am like my characters, sometimes even the female ones.” The Bahian author left at least two unfinished books: Bóris, o vermelho (Boris, the Red One), which he was trying to write since the de ’80s and A Apostasia Universal de Água Brusca, started in 1995.

Answering to a critic who called him a novelist of bums and whores he said: “That’s what I am.” He didn’t have the gift for languages even though he was fluent in French. He even gave up learning to write Portuguese correctly. After one more of the innumerous orthographic reforms he poured out his heart: “I write in baianês, decent language, Afro-Latin. Not being a linguist has its advantages. Imagine the heartache to see the words xoxota or xibius translated as woman’s sex or vulva, bunda turning into derrière. Derrière the bunda of a legitimate mulata? Never.”

Amado didn’t like to talk about death and old age and was not happy to commemorate his birthdays in the later years. “Why celebrate senility?” he used to ask. “For a man who loves life and loves to live like me, the idea of death         does not seduce at all.”

Touching the World

Reflecting on Amado’s death, major poet Ferreira Gullar wrote: “Jorge Amado’s death is not an event limited to Brazilian literature since he is a writer who, translated into almost any live language, occupies an unquestionable place in the contemporary literary universe. Many of the stories he invented, many of the characters he created have become part of the fantasy world of people of all races and countries—an accomplishment never achieved by any other Brazilian writer and only by few of any other nationality. We should say even that his death goes beyond the limits of the literary world because those stories and characters are today part of our life, of our culture, of our way of seeing ourselves, of loving ourselves and laughing at ourselves. They teach us Brazil.

“For a time I dedicated myself to reread Jorge Amado and Graciliano Ramos. This, exacting, avaricious of words, turned more to the interior world of the characters than to their actions. Masterpieces like Angústia and Vidas Secas call our attention to life’s suffocating reality, reveal one of the sides of this unequal and unforgiving Brazil. But there are other sides and one of them is shown to us by Jorge Amado’s literature, which is neither less true, nor less Brazilian or less critical. It’s the invention of another personality, more romantic, more sensual, more open to the pleasures of life. What this literature loses in rigor it gains in vitality and fantasy. And produces pages that are masterpieces of literary narration in Portuguese language…

“As every society is an invention of its participants, there is no way to believe that this Brazil that we invent—and reinvent every day—would be the same without the Vadinhos, the Gabrielas, the Berros d’Água, the Donas Flor, without infatuated and enchanted sailors, without the idealized prostitutes and whorehouses, the candomblé temples and the mães-de-santo, without bohemians, con artists, down-and-out poets and winos who were born in the pages of his books and ended up living and cohabiting with us. All these people are, at this moment, in some dead end street, in some room, in some bedroom from Ilhéus or Salvador— beyond time and history—telling tall tales, playing love in bed, playing cards or their own fate in some little passion, almost always unimportant, worried only about ardently surrendering themselves to life.”

It was mainly during the ’70s and 80s that Amado suffered the most severe criticism to his work. Some of the best Brazilian critics crucified him not only for what they saw as low literary quality but also distorted Baiano ideology. Carlos Guilherme Mota, in 1974, accused Amado of being repetitive. Alfredo Bosi, in his História Concisa da Literatura Brasileira (Concise History of Brazilian Literature) charges the author for overusing stereotypes: “The literary populism originated a blend of blunders, and the biggest of all was that of being considered revolutionary art. In Jorge Amado’s case the passage of time was enough to undo the mistake.”

Rogério Menezes wrote in Correio Braziliense: “Yesterday the most important Brazilian writer in 501 years of history died. He was not the greatest because he wrote concisely and precisely. That wouldn’t be Jorge Amado, it would be Alagoano Graciliano Ramos. He wasn’t the greatest for being a daring renovator of the literary language. That wouldn’t be Jorge Amado, it would be Mineiro João Guimarães Rosa. The barroque-baiano (expression that’s perhaps spectacular redundancy) Jorge Amado was the greatest because he was able as no other national author to take the rude and ignorant populace, the rabble, the mob that lives in the gutters, the wretched and the dispossessed, the miserable, the have-nothing, the survivors to the center of the plot of the national literature novels. And this, in this country soullessly elitist, is no small deal.”

Amado’s thoughts on

Latin-American Literature

“This doesn’t exist. This is a colonialist position. How can you put together, in a ghetto, the literatures of countries that have different economies and societies? The only thing in common among Latin-American countries is misery and oppression. We are all similar only in what there’s of bad and disgraceful.”

Brazilian Literature

"Our literature has the tradition to be on people’s side. In some periods of history, as in the worst years of the dictatorship, some authors distanced themselves from the people, but we still have the tradition.”

People

"It’s all that’s clean, pure, decent. Greatness is in the people, in the strength they have.”

 Writer and old age

“A writer needs to have time, he needs to live from his writing. This story of young spirit is nonsense. The spirit ends with youth. When we are old we cannot do one thousand things at the same time. We need to do one thing at a time. Ideas are not born when we sit by the typewriter, they mature gradually until they get to the right point.”

Censorship

“No author can blame censorship for not writing. Censorship can prevent a book from being published, but not from being written. It doesn’t harm the creation. See the example of Chico Buarque de Holanda, one of the more persecuted. He composed nine songs, they forbade eight and he was already writing his tenth.”

Politics

“I’m in favor of elections because it is a step for democracy, but I don’t have a party. I think I was violated when forced to vote in one party, since no Brazilian chooses a party but a candidate.”

Gabriela

“I sold Gabriela way too cheap, 100,000 dollars. And then they went and made this little porno movie that disfigured and vulgarized my book.”

Bahia

“In Europe they call me master, but it’s strolling through the streets of Salvador that I feel at ease.”

Religion

“It would be nice to believe that I have a place reserved by God’s right side. For me, a little place would be good enough, even sitting on the ground. It happens though that I am not able to believe in these things.”

Death

“I don’t fear death because I don’t believe in heaven or hell. But the idea of dying is not pleasant at all. I wished I would believe that everything will continue and that a god exists. But I cannot. For me, after death it’s all finished.”

Candomblé

“I’m materialistic, but my materialism does not limit me. I couldn’t have the pretension of being a Bahia novelist if I didn’t know intimately the candomblés.”

Communism

“I was in Moscow for the last time in 1989. I saw terrible things. I came back running because I was certain that I had a brain tumor. Then I saw that it wasn’t that. It was the Soviet Union, the Berlin Wall, all of that falling on my head.”

Socialism

“I never became an anticommunist. I think that socialism is the future. The fall of the Berlin Wall meant the end of the repulsive dictatorships that existed in name of communism, but were not communism.”

Nobel

“I never thought about getting the Nobel Prize. Why? I think I don’t deserve it. The prize has to be given to great writers. That’s not my case.”

Erudition

“I know little or nothing about theories. I am not an erudite reader of the theoreticians either. I am only a man who fought and fights for causes that seem just to me.”

Life

“I can say I am a lucky man. Life gave me more than I asked.”

Bibliography

1931 –  O País do Carnaval

1933 –  Cacau

1934 –  Suor

1935 –  Jubiabá This book was praised by French writer Albert Camus and was important for Amado’s reputation overseas.

1936 –  Mar Morto

1937 –  Capitães da Areia

1941 –  ABC de Castro Alves

1942 –  O Cavaleiro da Esperança. Was first released in Argentina. The Brazilian edition only appeared in 1945.

1943 –  Terras do Sem Fim

1944 –  São Jorge dos Ilhéus

1945 –  Bahia de Todos os Santos (travel guide)

1945 – O Cavaleiro da Esperança

1946 –  Seara Vermelha

1947 –  O Amor do Soldado (play)

1951 –  O Mundo da Paz (travel impressions)

1954 –  Os Subterrâneos da Liberdade (Trilogy: Os Ásperos Tempos, A Agonia da Noite, A Luz do Túnel)

1958 –  Gabriela, Cravo e Canela

1961 –  A Morte e a Morte de Quincas Berro d’Água

1961 –  Os Velhos Marinheiros or O Capitão-de-longo-curso

1964 –  Os Pastores da Noite

1966 –  Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos

1969 –  Tenda dos Milagres

1972 –  Tereza Batista Cansada de Guerra

1976 –  O Gato Malhado e a Andorinha Sinhá (book for children)

1977 –  Tieta do Agreste

1979 –  Farda, Fardão, Camisola de Dormir

1981 –  O Menino Grapiúna (memoirs)

1984 –  A Bola e o Goleiro (book for children)

1984 –  Tocaia Grande: A Face Obscura

1988 –  O Sumiço da Santa

1992 –  Navegação de Cabotagem (autobiography)

1994 – A Descoberta da América pelos Turcos

Short Stories

1945 – “História do Carnaval”

1963 – “De como o Mulato Porciúncula Descarregou o Seu Defunto”

1965 – “As Mortes e o Triunfo de Rosalinda”

1997 – “O Milagre dos Pássaros”

Poetry

1937 –  A Estrada do Mar

Co-author in

1930 –  Lenita with Dias da Costa and Edson Carneiro.

1942 –  Brandão entre o Mar e o Amor with Aníbal Machado, Graciliano Ramos, José Lins do Rêgo and Rachel de Queiroz.

1962 –  O Mistério dos MMM with Viriato Correia, Dinah Silveira de Queiroz, Lúcio Cardoso, Herberto Sales, José Condé, João Guimarães Rosa, Antonio Callado, Orígenes Lessa and Rachel de Queiroz.

1965 –  A Nação Grapiúna with Adonias Filho.

1986 –  O Capeta Carybé with engravings by Carybé.

Brief Chronology:

1912 – Jorge Amado is born on August 10, in a cocoa farm in Bahia state, son of merchant João Amado de Faria and Eulália Leal Amado.

1920-1926 – Does his basic schooling in Ilhéus and goes to a Jesuit high school in Salvador.

1922 – Creates newspaper A Luneta and distributes it among friends and relatives

1927: Publishes poem in A Luva magazine. Gets his first job as a reporter for Diário da Bahia.

1928 – Writes his first stories to magazines Samba, Meridiano and A Semana.

1930 – Moves to Rio.

1931 – Starts Law School at Universidade do Rio de Janeiro. País do Carnaval, his first book, is released.

1933 – Marries Matilde Garcia Rosa

1935 – Argentina becomes the first country to translate Jorge Amado, publishing his Cacau. Soon after, Cacau and Suor are published in Russian, in the former Soviet Union.

1935 – Is jailed for his communist militancy.

1937 – The author goes on a tour of Latin America and the United States. His books are considered subversive in Brazil and are burned in the streets of Salvador.

1938 – Suor is published in English translation by New York’s New America publishing house. In France, Gallimard publishes in French Jubiabá. Renowned writer Albert Camus will read the work and comment in an article: “Jubiabá is magnificent and startling.”

1942 – Goes into exile in Argentina.

1942 – Meets writer Zélia Gattai, the woman who would be with him until the end.

1945 – Starts living with Zélia Gattai. Elected House representative for the state of São Paulo by the Brazilian Communist Party.

1948 – Amado goes into exile in Europe when the Communist Party is declared illegal in Brazil.

1950 – Expelled from France for political reasons he goes to Dobris in Czechoslovakia.

1951 – Moves to Prague where his daughter Paloma is born. Is awarded the Stalin International Prize in Moscow.

1952 – Travels through China and Mongolia and returns to Brazil.

1953 – The US bans and confiscates all of his books for his communist point of view. He is forbidden to visit the United States.

1961 – Elected to the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

1975 –  Walter George Durst adapts Gabriela, Cravo e Canela into a TV soap opera.

1978 – Bruno Barreto’s movie Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos becomes the all time biggest box-office ever for a Brazilian movie in Brazil. He officially marries Zélia Gattai, now that divorce becomes available in Brazil.

1967 – União Brasileira de Escritores (Brazilian Writers Union) presents in Stockholm his nomination to the Nobel Prize of Literature.

1975 – French director Marcel Camus makes Os Pastores da Noite into a movie called Othalia de Bahia.

1979 – Saravá based in Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos opens on Broadway. The musical is authored by Richard Nash and Mitch Leigh.

1983 –  Gabriela, starring Sônia Braga and Marcello Mastroianni is made. Receives France’s Legion of Honor.

1987 – Casa de Jorge Amado Foundation is created in Salvador, Bahia.

1995 –  Receives Prêmio Camões, the most important literary award in the Portuguese language.

1995 – Released revised versions of Gabriela, Cravo e Canela, Terras do Sem Fim, Capitães da Areia, Mar Morto and Jubiabá. The revision work is done by Paloma Costa, the author’s daughter.

Excerpts from some of
Jorge Amado’s best known books:

From O País do Carnaval (1931)

Entre o azul do céu e o verde do mar, o navio ruma o verde-amarelo pátrio.

Três horas da tarde. Ar parado. Calor.

No tombadilho, entre franceses, ingleses, argentinos e ianques está todo o Brasil (Evoé, Carnaval!).

Fazendeiros ricos de volta da Europa, onde correram igrejas e museus.

Diplomatas a dar idéia de manequins de uma casa de modas masculinas...

Políticos imbecis e gordos, suas magras e imbecis filhas e seus imbecis filhos doutores.

Lá no fundo, namorando o mistério das águas, uma francesa linda como as coisas caras, aventureira viajada, da qual se dizia conhecer todos os países e todas as raças, o que eqüivale a dizer que conhecia toda a espécie de homem, tolera, com um sorriso condescendente, o galanteio juliodantesco de uma dúzia de filhos-família brasileiros e argentinos.

—A senhorita é linda...

—Minha vida pela sua vida...

—Faça um sinal e me atirarei n'água!

—Eu queria que o navio naufragasse para poder provar quanto a amo...

Tudo isso era dito em mau francês, num mau francês de causar inveja aos rapazes que lêem Dekobrá e têm por Tiradentes uma paixão patriótica.

Toda essa gente sua muito debaixo da elegância das roupas quentes, feitas em Londres e Paris a preços elevados.

Toda a gente, menos a francesa, que traja um vestido simples de musselina branca. É, em verdade, bela. Olhos verdes como o mar e a pele alva. Não admira aqueles tropicais brasileiros e argentinos gastem com ela a sua retórica, tão precisa à Pátria.

From Mar Morto (1936)

Tempestade

A noite se antecipou. Os homens ainda não a esperavam quando ela desabou sobre a cidade em nuvens carregadas. Ainda não estavam acesas as luzes do cais, no Farol das Estrelas não brilhavam ainda as lâmpadas pobres que iluminavam os copos de cachaça, muitos saveiros ainda cortavam as águas do mar quando o vento trouxe a noite de nuvens pretas.

Os homens se olharam e como que se interrogavam. Fitavam o azul do oceano a perguntar de onde vinha aquela noite adiantada no tempo. Não era hora ainda. No entanto, ela vinha carregada de nuvens, precedida do vento frio do crepúsculo, embaciando o sol como num milagre terrível.

A noite veio, nesse dia, sem música que a saudasse. Não ecoara pela cidade a voz clara dos sinos do fim da tarde. Nenhum negro aparecera ainda de violão na areia do cais. Nenhuma harmônica saudava a noite da proa de um saveiro. Não rolara sequer pelas ladeiras o baticum monótono dos candomblés e macumbas. Por que então a noite já chegara sem esperar a música, sem esperar o aviso dos sinos, a cadência das violas e harmônicas, o misterioso bater dos instrumentos religiosos?

Por que viera assim antes da hora, fora do tempo?

From Tereza Batista Cansada de Guerra (1972)

Quando souberam que eu ia voltar àquelas bandas, então me pediram para trazer notícias de Tereza Batista e tirar a limpo uns tantos acontecidos—o que não falta no mundo é gente curiosa, pois não.

Assim foi que andei assuntado, por aqui e por ali, nas feiras do sertão e na beira do cais e, com o tempo e a confiança, pouco a pouco puseram-me a par de enredos e tramas, uns engraçados, outros tristes, cada qual à sua maneira e conforme sua compreensão. Juntei quanto pude ouvir e entender, pedaços de histórias, sons de harmônica, passos de dança, gritos de desespero, ais de amor, tudo mistura e atropelo, para os desejosos de informações sobre a moça de cobre, seus afazeres e correrias. Grande coisa não tenho para narrar, o povo de lá não é de muita conversa, e quem mais sabe menos diz para não tirar o diploma de mentiroso.

Essas andanças de Tereza Batista se passaram naquele país situado nas margens do rio Real, nos limites da Bahia e de Sergipe adentro um bom pedaço; ali e também na capital. Território habitado por uma nação de caboclos e pardos, cafuzos, gente de pouca pabulagem e de muito agir, menos os da capital, sestrosos mulatos de canto e batuque. Quando me refiro à Capital geral desses povos do norte, todos entendem que falo da cidade da Bahia, por alguns dita Salvador ninguém sabe por quê. Também não importa discutir nem contrariar quando o nome da Bahia já se estende até a corte da França e os gelos da Alemanha, sem falar na costa da África.

Me desculpem se eu não contar tudo, tintim por tintim, não o faço por não saber—e será que existe no mundo quem saiba toda a verdade de Tereza Batista, sua labuta, seu lazer? Não creio nem muito menos.

From Tocaia grande –  A face obscura (1984)

As comemorações dos setenta anos da fundação de Irisópolis e dos cinqüenta de sua elevação à cidade, cabeça de comarca e sede de município, alcançaram certa repercussão na imprensa do sul do país. Se para tanto o dinâmico prefeito despendeu verba elevada, não incorre em crítica: tudo quanto se faça para divulgar as excelências de Irisópolis, o passado de epopéia, o presente de esplendor, merece aplauso e elogio. Além das matérias pagas os jornais do Rio e de São Paulo divulgaram algum noticiário sobre os eventos principais que abrilhantaram os festejos, com destaque para as cerimônias, ambas solenes, da inauguração dos bustos do coronel Prudêncio de Aguiar e do doutor Inácio Pereira, erguidos um em cada praça, a da Prefeitura e a da Matriz.

A partir do revertério da situação política, com o fim do domínio da laia que assumira o mando após a morte dos Andrade, o pai e o filho, o fazendeiro mandou e desmandou na Intendência durante lustros, intendente ele próprio ou preposto de sua escolha, parente ou

compadre. Provas da capacidade administrativa do Coronel e de sua dedicação no exercício do poder ainda hoje são vistas e admiradas no perímetro urbano, inclusive a rua calçada com paralelepípedos ingleses—importados da Inglaterra, sim senhores!—, orgulho da população irisopolense, enquanto as acusações de desvio dos dinheiros públicos desvaneceram-se no passar do tempo. Quanto ao escapulário, na qualidade de cunhado e conselheiro, de cidadão de aptidões singulares, exerceu os cargos mais elevados, assumiu as incumbências mais responsáveis, tendo presidido a comissão formada com o meritório objetivo de angariar fundos destinados à construção da Matriz, magnífico templo católico, outro orgulho da coletividade: símbolo da fé e do idealismo daqueles valentes que, empolgados com o denodo dos dois beneméritos pioneiros, colaboram na colocação da primeira pedra da localidade.

From Jubiabá (1935)

Na terça-feira nem no trabalho apareceu. Totonha, que veio da casa da doente, avisou:

– A velha esticou as canelas...

Os homens pararam o trabalho por um minuto. Um disse:

– Já estava na idade...

– Está inchada que nem um boi... Faz até medo...

– Que doença mais esquisita...

– Ninguém me tira que aquilo foi espírito ruim...

Zequinha vinha chegando. Os homens se curvaram de novo sobre as folhas de fumo. Totonha falou com ele e depois avisou:

– Eu vou ficar com a menina. De noite tem sentinela...

O negro Filomeno segredou para Antônio Balduíno:

– Quem me dera ser eu. Sozinho com ela, era um Deus nos acuda...

O Gordo bebeu um trago de cachaça porque tinha muito medo de defunto. E, na hora do almoço, ficaram relembrando histórias de defuntos conhecidos, contando casos de doenças e de mortes. O negro Filomeno não falava. Estava com um plano na cabeça. Pensava em Arminda, na frescura da sua carne moça.

Os fifós pareciam andar. A luz vacilante se aproximava da casa de taipa. Não se viam pessoas. Somente aquela luz vermelha que bruxuleava e mudava de lugar como uma alma penada. Na porta, Totonha recebia as visitas que vinham fazer a sentinela da morte. E distribuía abraços e recebia pêsames como se fosse parente de sinhá Laura. Estava com os olhos úmidos e narrava os sofrimentos da defunta:

– Coitada gritava tanto... Também com aquela doença danada...

– Aquilo era espírito...

– Deu de inchar, ficou com a barriga estufada...

– Agora descansou...

Uma mulher se benzeu. O negro Filomeno perguntou:

– E Arminda?

– Tá lá dentro chorando... Coitadinha, ficou sem ninguém no mundo...

Ofereceu cachaça que todos tomaram.

No único cômodo da casa dois bancos se alinhavam ao lado de uma parede. Alguns homens e mulheres, de pés descalços e cabeças descobertas, velavam a morta. Do outro lado da sala uma cadeira velha onde Arminda sentada chorava um choro sem lágrimas, intercalado de soluços altos. Tinha os olhos tapados com um lenço vermelho. Os recém-chegados foram até onde ela estava e apertaram-lhe a mão sem que ela se movesse. Não diziam palavra.

E no meio da sala, estendido em cima de uma mesa, que era nos dias comuns cama e mesa de jantar, estava o cadáver, inchado, parecendo querer estourar. Uma coberta de chitão, de grandes flores amarelas e verdes, cobria o corpo, deixando do lado de fora o rosto enrugado com a boca torcida e os pés enormes e achatados de dedos abertos. Os homens ao voltar espiavam o rosto da morta e as mulheres se benziam. Uma vela estava colocada perto da cabeça da defunta e despenhava a luz baça sobre o rosto parado, ainda torcido numa expressão de sofrimento. E aqueles olhos parados pareciam olhar fixamente os homens e as mulheres, que agora estavam todos sentados nos bancos e cochichavam. Uma garrafa de cachaça passou de mão em mão. Bebiam pelo gargalo em grandes tragos. Dois homens saíram para fumar lá fora. Zequinha chegou e passou a mão na cabeça de Arminda. Então começaram as orações puxadas pelo Gordo:

“Senhor, tomai essa alma”.

Os presentes respondiam em coro:

“Orai por ela...”.

A garrafa de cachaça corria pela roda. Bebiam pelo próprio gargalo. A vela brilhava sobre o rosto da morta, que cada vez inchava mais. O coro vinha como um lamento:

“Orai por ela”.

Names of Amado’s Books Published in English

Sea of Death (1936)

Captains of the Sands (1937)

The Violent Land (1942)

The War of the Saints (1942)

The Golden Harvest (1944)

Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon (1958)

The Two Deaths of Quincas Wateryell (1961)

Home is the Sailor (1961)

Shepherds of the Night (1964)

Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands: A Moral and Amorous Tale (1966)

The Tent of Miracles (1969)

Tereza Batista: Home from the Wars (1972)

The Swallow and the Tom Cat: a Love Story (1976)

Tieta (1977)

The Great Ambush (1984)

Showdown (1989)

Send your
comments to
Brazzil

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Name

Email

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment Preview