Cacau (novel)

Last updated
Cacau
CacauNovel.jpg
First edition of Cacau
Author Jorge Amado
CountryBrazil
Language Portuguese
GenreFiction
Set in Ilhéus, Brazil
PublisherAriel Publishing House
Publication date
1933 (1933)

Cacau (trans. Cocoa) is Brazilian Social Realism [1] novel written by Jorge Amado.

Contents

It was written by Jorge Amado in 1933 and was his second novel, forming together with Suor the beginning of the development of Amado's project of a Proletarian novel, that would communicate the basics of communist thought. [1]

It was published in 1933 by the Ariel Publishing House in Rio de Janeiro.

Background

The book had considerable autobiographical elements. Amado, twenty-one years old at the time of writing, had in his earlier life considerable direct contact with the hard life of the laborers in the cocoa plantations, and his experience formed the basis for this novel. Unlike in his first novel, the present one is written in the first person.

Reflecting the author's political development, the book expresses Socialist ideas and promotes workers' organizing for class struggle - specifically, in the harsh and exploitive world of the cocoa plantations. Cacau ends with the hero renouncing the opportunity to marry the landowner’s daughter and, instead, setting off to join the class struggle in Rio de Janeiro. [1]

Plot

The book tells the story of a Sergipano (inhabitant of Sergipe), who arrives in Ilhéus in search of work. He suffers long hunger and is apprehensive of the city until encountering a good-hearted guard named Roberto in front of a big bakery, who gives him some bread. Later on the same day he encounters Roberto again, gets invited to a canteen to eat a feijoada and there meets several men sitting at the back. He is presented to one of them, nicknamed "The '98", who in turn introduces the protagonist to a Colonel Misael, involved in recruiting men to work on the cocoa plantations. With the money that these two new friends give him, the young man manages to catch the train to Pirangi and, after a long journey and numerous events described in detail, he arrives at his destination. There, he embarks on the course of hard work and befriends the carpenter Colodino, as well as fellow workers João Grilo, Antonio Barriguinha and Honório, who are mostly Blacks or Mulattos.

But there is not only work. On days of rest the protagonist and his friends drink a lot, especially cachaça, frequent the brothels, working men's club, and gambling dens. Many of the characters would also play an important roles in later works of Amado. Ultimately, they develop an increasing class consciousness and start becoming politically involved. This, again, is a highly autobiographical element paralleling Amado's own life.

Reception

The first edition of 2,000 copies sold out in 40 days. [2]

It was published the same year as Serafim Ponte Grande by Oswald de Andrade. Due to the fashion of the "proletarian novel" both Cacau by Jorge Amado and Os Corumbas by Amando Fontes were bestsellers that year. Pagu's Parque Industrial, published also in 1933, did not share the same luck. [3]

Alberto Passos Guimarães was the book's first published critic: an avowed communist, his judgement of value was based on how much the novel was a proper "Proletarian novel", and in his judgement it largely does. [4]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Dineen 1997, p. 57.
  2. D'Angelo & Rios da Silva 2013, p. 55.
  3. Bueno 2006, pp. 159–160.
  4. Bueno 2006, pp. 161–164.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jorge Amado</span> Brazilian writer (1912–2001)

Jorge Amado was a Brazilian writer of the modernist school. He remains the best-known of modern Brazilian writers, with his work having been translated into some 49 languages and popularized in film, including Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands in 1976. His work reflects the image of a Mestiço Brazil and is marked by religious syncretism. He depicted a cheerful and optimistic country that was beset, at the same time, with deep social and economic differences.

<i>The Country of Carnival</i> First novel of the Brazilian writer Jorge Amado

The Country of Carnival is a 1931 novel by Brazilian writer Jorge Amado. In this debut novel, the themes that would come to permeate the author's work can already be seen, albeit in an embryonic form. The book is an account of the typical Brazilian intelligentsia of the 1920s. It has not been translated into English.

<i>Sweat</i> (novel) 1934 Brazilian novel by Jorge Amado

Sweat is a Brazilian Modernist novel. It was written by Jorge Amado in 1934. It has yet to be translated into English.

<i>Jubiabá</i>

Jubiabá is a Brazilian modernist novel written by Jorge Amado in 1935. It earned Amado an international reputation, being hailed by Albert Camus as “a magnificent and haunting” book.

<i>Captains of the Sands</i> 1937 novel by Jorge Amado

Captains of the Sands is a Brazilian novel written by Jorge Amado in 1937.

<i>The Violent Land</i> Novel by the Brazilian writer Jorge Amado

The Violent Land is a Brazilian Modernist novel written by Jorge Amado in 1943 and published in English in 1945. It describes the battles to develop cacao plantations in the forests of the Bahia state of Brazil. Amado wrote that "No other of my books.. . is as dear to me as The Violent Land, in it lie my roots; it is from the blood from which I was created; it contains the gunfire that resounded during my early infancy", and suggested that the novel belongs to a distinct Brazilian "literature of cacao". By 1965, the book had been adapted as a film, as well as for the stage, television and radio.

<i>The Golden Harvest</i> Novel by Brazilian writer Jorge Amado

The Golden Harvest is a Brazilian Modernist novel. It was written by Jorge Amado from 1942 to 1944, published in Portuguese in 1944 and in English in 1992.

<i>Red Field</i> 1946 novel by Jorge Amado

Red Field is a Brazilian Modernist novel. It was written by Jorge Amado. It has not been published in English.

<i>Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon</i> 1958 novel by Jorge Amado

Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon is a Brazilian modernist novel by Jorge Amado, originally published in 1958 and later published in English in 1962. It is widely considered one of Amado's finest works. A film adaptation, Gabriela, was released in 1983.

<i>The Discovery of America by the Turks</i> 1994 novel by Jorge Amado

The Discovery of America by the Turks is a Brazilian Modernist novel. It was written by Jorge Amado in 1994 but not published in English until 2012. Amado tells how, in 1991, he was approached by an organization in Italy to write a story to celebrate the fifth centennial of the discovery of the American continent. This would be published in a book, together with stories by Norman Mailer and Carlos Fuentes, which would be handed out to passengers flying between Italy and Central, North and South America in 1992, the year of the fifth centennial. Amado submitted The Discovery of America by the Turks but the Italian book was never published, leaving Amado free to publish the 77-page story as a separate volume.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graciliano Ramos</span>

Graciliano Ramos de Oliveira was a Brazilian modernist writer, politician and journalist. He is known worldwide for his portrayal of the precarious situation of the poor inhabitants of the Brazilian sertão in his novel Vidas secas. His characters are complex, nuanced, and tend to have pessimistic world views, from which Ramos deals with topics such as the lust for power, misogyny, and infidelity. His protagonists are mostly lower-class men from northeastern Brazil, which are often aspiring writers, or illiterate country workers, all of which usually have to deal with poverty and complex social relations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ilhéus</span> Municipality in Nordeste, Brazil

Ilhéus is a major city located in the southern coastal region of Bahia, Brazil, 211 km south of Salvador, the state's capital. The city was founded in 1534 as Vila de São Jorge dos Ilhéus and is known as one of the most important tourism centers of the northeast of Brazil.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adonias Filho</span> Brazilian novelist, essayist, journalist, and literary critic (1915–1990)

Adonias Aguiar Filho was a novelist, essayist, journalist, and literary critic from Bahia, Brazil, and a member of the Academia Brasileira de Letras.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">José Lins do Rego</span> Brazilian novelist

José Lins do Rego Cavalcanti was a Brazilian novelist most known for his semi-autobiographical "sugarcane cycle." These novels were the basis of films that had distribution in the English-speaking world.

The Prêmio Jabuti is the most traditional literary award in Brazil, given by the Brazilian Book Chamber (CBL). It was conceived by Edgard Cavalheiro in 1959 when he presided over the CBL, with the interest of rewarding authors, editors, illustrators, graphics and booksellers who stood out each year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carybé</span> Argentine-Brazilian artist and historian (1911–1997)

Héctor Julio Páride Bernabó was an Argentine-Brazilian artist, researcher, writer, historian and journalist. His nickname and artistic name, Carybé, a type of piranha, comes from his time in the scouts. He died of heart failure after the meeting of a candomblé community's lay board of directors, the Cruz Santa Opô Afonjá Society, of which he was a member.

Proletarian literature refers here to the literature created by left-wing writers mainly for the class-conscious proletariat. Though the Encyclopædia Britannica states that because it "is essentially an intended device of revolution", it is therefore often published by the Communist Party or left wing sympathizers, the proletarian novel has also been categorized without any emphasis on revolution, as a novel "about the working classes and working-class life; perhaps with the intention of making propaganda". This different emphasis may reflect a difference between Russian, American and other traditions of working-class writing, with that of Britain. The British tradition was not especially inspired by the Communist Party, but had its roots in the Chartist movement, and socialism, amongst others. Furthermore, writing about the British working-class writers, H Gustav Klaus, in The Socialist Novel: Towards the Recovery of a Tradition (1982) suggested that "the once current [term] 'proletarian' is, internationally, on the retreat, while the competing concepts of 'working-class' and 'socialist' continue to command about equal adherence".

Tieta is a 1989 Brazilian telenovela, produced and broadcast by Rede Globo. It originally aired between August 14, 1989, and March 30, 1990, spanning 196 episodes. It was TV Globo's 41st primetime telenovela, preceded by O Salvador da Pátria and followed by Rainha da Sucata.

Senhor was a monthly cultural magazine published in the period of 1959 and 1964. The magazine was headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brazilian cacao cycle</span>

The Brazilian cacao cycle or boom was a period in Brazil's economic history in which the country remained between first and second in world cacao production.

References