Tent of Miracles

The name Jorge Amado has been largely ignored by most of the English speaking world. Even in translation (the original Portuguese survives the trip well) his books contain some of the most beautiful prose written. There is no limit to the quality of this, in my opinion, his best work. The world he creates, with all of the rich characters, has a Utopian face that hides the substance of the novel to the casual reader. The main character, Pedro Archanjo, is both a freewheeling entertaining rogue and a fierce activist against racism. The locale of Bahia is the home of this tale and the setting could not be better. After an intellectual celebrity 'discovers' the writings of Pedro Archanjo, a race is on to show who was the biggest supporter of the man who has now become a hero, posthumously. The story occurs along two lines, one is in Archanjo's lifetime and the second during the hoopla generated decades later by the professor from Columbia. Simply put, there are too many wonderful aspects of this novel to even begin to describe in a small space, hence the disjointed review. However, I recommend this novel to anyone who asks (I own a bookstore) for the reason that even with the strife that takes place in it, this book contains a world completely enviable because the people in it are far more alive than almost any we meet in life.


Genre: Literary Fiction