Day: 19 January 2020

The latest edition to my website is Euclides da Cunha‘s Os Sertões (Rebellion in the Backlands; later: Backlands: The Canudos Campaign). This is not a novel but has had considerable influence on Brazilian and other literatures and is sometimes mistaken for a novel, as it reads like one. It is an account of War of … Read more

Every year at around this time, after returning from our annual escape-the-English-winter holiday, I focus on the literature of just one country. This year the country is Brazil. Brazil has a long literary history. In 1500 Pedro Alvares Cabral made the first European exploration of what is now Brazil. With him was his scribe Pêro … Read more