Novel
The Guarany
O Guarani
José de Alencar · 1857
Opening lines
De um dos cabeços da Serra dos Órgãos desliza um fio d'água que se dirige para o norte, e engrossado com os mananciais, que recebe no seu curso de dez léguas, torna-se rio caudal.
From one of the peaks of the Serra dos Órgãos there slips a thread of water that runs northward and, swollen by the springs it receives along its course of ten leagues, becomes a full river.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from archive.org
Synopsis
In 1604, in the remote interior of the province of Rio, the fidalgo Antônio de Mariz has fortified his house on the banks of the Paquequer. He lives there with his wife, his son Diogo, his daughter Cecília, known as Ceci, and Isabel, a natural daughter whom he passes off as his niece. Peri, a Goitacá warrior, is devoted to Ceci without limit. Diogo has accidentally killed an Aimoré woman and the tribe prepares its revenge, while Loredano, an ambitious former monk, urges the men of the household to revolt in order to plunder it and carry off Ceci.
Context
The novel first appeared as a serial in the Diário do Rio de Janeiro, from 1 January 1857, then in volume form the same year, at the expense of its author, who insisted on it. Carlos Gomes drew an opera in Italian from it, Il Guarany, performed in Milan in 1870. James W. Hawes translated it into English in 1893; in French, it appeared as a serial in 1899 under the title Les Aventuriers ou le Guarani, then in volume form in 1902, translated by Louis-Xavier de Ricard, under the title Le Fils du soleil.
Who it is for
A long, romantic novel, cut up for the press, in which adventure, the forest and Peri's devotion take first place.
Prizes and reception
The book that established its author, one of the founding narratives of the Brazilian novel, reissued by many publishers.
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