Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Penguin Classics (2012), Edition: 1, Paperback, 96 pages
Description
Two Arab immigrants' "Turks" as Brazilians call them, arrive in the rough Brazilian frontier on the same ship in 1903, hoping to find a future. They rub shoulders with gunslingers and plantation owners, and also tangle with merchants, one of whom is desperate to marry off his impossible daughter. Thus ensues a farcical drama that produces, in a humorous twist, the unlikeliest of suitors in this whimsical Brazilian take on The Taming of the Shrew.
User reviews
LibraryThing member encephalical
There are funny bits, but essentially it all boils down to the ol' patriarchal "what she really needs is..."
LibraryThing member thorold
A late novella, written as a tie-in with the celebrations for the 500th anniversary of Columbus's discovery of China Hispaniola. Amado reasons that if Columbus could be said to have "discovered America", the same thing could just as well be said of two Ottoman opportunists who happened to arrive in
Amado uses a deceptively simple kind of Arabian Nights narrative style to tell the story, but it's all heavily loaded with irony. If it's a rehash of The taming of the shrew then it's one in which the men are shown to be just as shallow and selfish as the women. Ibrahim's chief motivation for marrying off his daughter is to obtain the freedom to go fishing in the mornings again: he apparently sees nothing odd about canvassing a possible suitor for her hand during a party at the local brothel. Amado's narrator seems to be on the side of the men in the battle, but it's not at all clear that the reader is expected to agree with that.
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Bahia on the same immigrant ship in 1903. Raduan becomes a professional poker-player, Jamil a shopkeeper, and there's a comic plot of Raduan trying to marry Jamil off to Adma, fearsome daughter of Ibrahim, proprietor of the Bon Marché drapery. Amado uses a deceptively simple kind of Arabian Nights narrative style to tell the story, but it's all heavily loaded with irony. If it's a rehash of The taming of the shrew then it's one in which the men are shown to be just as shallow and selfish as the women. Ibrahim's chief motivation for marrying off his daughter is to obtain the freedom to go fishing in the mornings again: he apparently sees nothing odd about canvassing a possible suitor for her hand during a party at the local brothel. Amado's narrator seems to be on the side of the men in the battle, but it's not at all clear that the reader is expected to agree with that.
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Awards
Prêmio Jabuti (Romance — 1995)
Language
Original language
Portuguese
Original publication date
1994
Physical description
96 p.; 5.04 inches
ISBN
0143106988 / 9780143106982
Local notes
Descoberta da América pelos turcos
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