Epic
Rebellion in the Backlands
Os sertões
Euclides da Cunha · 1902
Opening lines
O Planalto Central do Brasil desce, nos litorais do Sul, em escarpas inteiriças, altas e abruptas. Assoberba os mares; e desata-se em chapadões nivelados pelos visos das cordilheiras marítimas, distendidas do Rio Grande a Minas.
The Central Plateau of Brazil descends, on the southern coasts, in unbroken escarpments, high and abrupt. It towers over the seas, and unfolds in tablelands level with the crests of the coastal ranges that stretch from Rio Grande to Minas.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from archive.org
Synopsis
The book begins with the land, the relief, the climate and the drought of the sertão, then describes the man this land has shaped. Finally comes the struggle: in 1893, the wandering preacher Antônio Conselheiro founded Canudos, in the heart of the sertão of Bahia, where thousands of poor people gather and which the Republic regards as a threat. A first military expedition is defeated in 1896, a second withdraws, a third is routed in March 1897; a fourth, numbering more than four thousand men, undertakes the siege.
Context
The book appeared in 1902 from Laemmert. Encyclopedia.com reports that its author, who arrived at Canudos in mid-September 1897, left it ill before the village was taken, and that he wrote the book while supervising the construction of a bridge; the first print run of a thousand copies sold out quickly and opened the Academy to him. It is seen as the first Brazilian book-length reportage, fed by Taine's determinism and the racial theories of its time, now discredited. Samuel Putnam, who translated it into English in 1944, considered it the greatest book of Brazil.
Who it is for
A long book in three parts, the land, the man and the struggle, at the crossroads of geography, history and reportage.
Prizes and reception
A classic of Brazilian literature, translated into French under the title Hautes Terres and into English as early as 1944.