O Senhor Embaixador

Last updated
First edition (publ. Editora Globo) OSenhorEmbaixador.jpg
First edition (publ. Editora Globo)

O Senhor Embaixador (His Excellency, the Ambassador) is a novel by Erico Verissimo, about the history of the fictional Republic of Sacramento. The story focuses mainly on the staff of the Sacramentese embassy in Washington, showing the lives of those people and talking about the larger plot of the Sacramento "Republic".

Sacramento

The Sacramento depicted in the novel seems to be an amalgam of various Latin American countries of the time, exhibiting the common problems of dictatorship, corruption, instability, inequality and pressures from the superpowers, especially the United States, that are depicted in the novel as directly influencing through military incursions and economic pressure the political, economic and social state of Sacramento, mainly in order to benefit American multinational corporations in the country (references are made to War is a Racket ). Sacramento also exhibits a resemblance to Cuba, especially by the end of the book, when a revolution led by a messianic figure (who is actually a puppet controlled by a radical communist), overthrows a US supported dictator.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Political fiction</span> Literary genre

Political fiction employs narrative to comment on political events, systems and theories. Works of political fiction, such as political novels, often "directly criticize an existing society or present an alternative, even fantastic, reality". The political novel overlaps with the social novel, proletarian novel, and social science fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slovakia</span> Country in Central Europe

Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's mostly mountainous territory spans about 49,000 square kilometres (19,000 sq mi), hosting a population exceeding 5.4 million. The capital and largest city is Bratislava, while the second largest city is Košice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demographics of Tonga</span> Demographics of country

Tongans, a Polynesian group, represent more than 98% of the inhabitants of Tonga. The rest are European, mixed European, and other Pacific Islanders. There also are several hundred Chinese. Almost two-thirds of the population live on its main island, Tongatapu. Although an increasing number of Tongans have moved into the only urban and commercial center, Nukuʻalofa, where European and Indigenous cultural and living patterns have blended, village life and kinship ties continue to be important throughout the country. Everyday life is heavily influenced by Polynesian traditions and especially by the Christian faith; for example, all commerce and entertainment activities cease from midnight Saturday until midnight Sunday, and the constitution declares the Sabbath to be sacred, forever. Other important Christian denominations include Methodists and Roman Catholics, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uruguay</span> Country in South America

Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast. It is part of the Southern Cone region of South America. Uruguay covers an area of approximately 176,215 square kilometres (68,037 sq mi) and has a population of around 3.4 million, of whom nearly 2 million live in the metropolitan area of its capital and largest city, Montevideo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Socialist realism</span> Soviet style of realistic art depicting communist values

Socialist realism was the official cultural doctrine of the Soviet Union that mandated an idealized representation of life under socialism in literature and the visual arts. The doctrine was first proclaimed by the First Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934 as approved method for Soviet cultural production in all media. Following World War II, socialist realism was adopted by countries politically aligned with the Soviet Union. The primary official objective of socialist realism was "to depict reality in its revolutionary development" although no formal guidelines concerning style or subject matter were provided.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hydraulic mining</span> Mining technique using high-pressure water jets to carve away minerals

Hydraulic mining is a form of mining that uses high-pressure jets of water to dislodge rock material or move sediment. In the placer mining of gold or tin, the resulting water-sediment slurry is directed through sluice boxes to remove the gold. It is also used in mining kaolin and coal.

<i>The Feast of the Goat</i> 2000 novel by Mario Vargas Llosa

The Feast of the Goat is a 2000 novel by the Peruvian Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa. The book is set in the Dominican Republic and portrays the assassination of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, and its aftermath, from two distinct standpoints a generation apart: during and immediately after the assassination itself, in May 1961; and thirty-five years later, in 1996. Throughout, there is also extensive reflection on the heyday of the dictatorship, in the 1950s, and its significance for the island and its inhabitants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sacramento Valley</span> Area of the Central Valley in California

The Sacramento Valley is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies north of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the Sacramento River. It encompasses all or parts of ten Northern California counties. Although many areas of the Sacramento Valley are rural, it contains several urban areas, including the state capital, Sacramento. Since 2010, statewide droughts in California have further strained both the Sacramento Valley's and the Sacramento metropolitan region's water security.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dale Brown</span> American writer

Dale Brown is an American writer and aviator known for aviation techno-thriller novels. At least thirteen of his novels have been New York Times Best Sellers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nagua</span> Municipality in María Trinidad Sánchez, Dominican Republic

Nagua is the capital of María Trinidad Sánchez province, in the northeastern Dominican Republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California State Indian Museum</span> Historic site in California, U.S.

The California State Indian Museum is a museum in the state park system of California, United States, interpreting the diverse cultures of the indigenous peoples of California. It is located in Midtown Sacramento at 2618 K Street. The museum exhibits traditional items illustrating the varying cultures of the state's first inhabitants. The native population of California, one of the largest and most diverse in the Western hemisphere, was made up of over 150 distinct tribal groups who spoke at least 64 different languages. Prior to the arrival of the first European explorers, the native population is estimated to have been in excess of 500,000 people.

In its economic relations, Japan is both a major trading nation and one of the largest international investors in the world. In many respects, international trade is the lifeblood of Japan's economy. Imports and exports totaling the equivalent of nearly US$1.309.2 Trillion in 2017, which meant that Japan was the world's fourth largest trading nation after China, the United States and Germany. Trade was once the primary form of Japan's international economic relationships, but in the 1980s its rapidly rising foreign investments added a new and increasingly important dimension, broadening the horizons of Japanese businesses and giving Japan new world prominence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Italian diaspora</span> Italian people and their descendants living outside Italy

The Italian diaspora is the large-scale emigration of Italians from Italy. There were two major Italian diasporas in Italian history. The first diaspora began around 1880, two decades after the Unification of Italy, and ended in the 1920s to the early 1940s with the rise of Fascist Italy. Poverty was the main reason for emigration, specifically the lack of land as mezzadria sharecropping flourished in Italy, especially in the South, and property became subdivided over generations. Especially in Southern Italy, conditions were harsh. From the 1860s to the 1950s, Italy was still a largely rural society with many small towns and cities having almost no modern industry and in which land management practices, especially in the South and the Northeast, did not easily convince farmers to stay on the land and to work the soil.

A war novel or military fiction is a novel about war. It is a novel in which the primary action takes place on a battlefield, or in a civilian setting, where the characters are preoccupied with the preparations for, suffering the effects of, or recovering from war. Many war novels are historical novels.

The culture of California is tied to the culture of the United States as a whole. However, there are features that are unique to California. With roots in the cultures of Spain, Asia, Mexico, and the eastern United States, California integrates foods, languages and traditions from all over the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Socialist realism in Poland</span> Soviet cultural doctrine in Poland

Socialist realism in Poland was a socio-political and aesthetic doctrine enforced by the pro-Soviet communist government in the process of Stalinization of the post-war Polish People’s Republic. The official policy was introduced in 1949 by a decree of the Polish United Workers' Party minister Włodzimierz Sokorski. As in all Soviet-dominated Eastern Bloc countries, Socialist realism became the main instrument of political control in the building of totalitarianism in Poland. However, the trend never became truly dominant. Following Stalin's death, and especially from 1953 on, critical opinions were heard with increasing frequency. Finally, as part of the Gomułka political thaw from within the Polish United Workers' Party, the entire doctrine was officially given up in 1956. Following Bierut's death on March 12, 1956, and the subsequent De-Stalinization of all People's Republics, Polish artists, writers and architects started abandoning it around 1956.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Banana republic</span> Political-science term for a politically unstable country

In political science, the term banana republic describes a politically and economically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the export of natural resources. In 1904, American author O. Henry coined the term to describe Guatemala and Honduras under economic exploitation by U.S. corporations, such as the United Fruit Company. Typically, a banana republic has a society of extremely stratified social classes, usually a large impoverished working class and a ruling class plutocracy, composed of the business, political, and military elites. The ruling class controls the primary sector of the economy by way of exploitation of labour. Therefore, the term banana republic is a pejorative descriptor for a servile oligarchy that abets and supports, for kickbacks, the exploitation of large-scale plantation agriculture, especially banana cultivation.

<i>Tripmaster Monkey</i> 1989 novel by Maxine Hong Kingston

Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book is the third book written by Maxine Hong Kingston, and was published in 1989. The story follows Wittman Ah Sing, an American graduate of University of California, Berkeley of Chinese ancestry in his adventures about San Francisco during the 1960s. Heavily influenced by the Beat movement, and exhibiting many prototypical features of postmodernism, the book retains numerous themes, such as ethnicity and prejudice, addressed in Kingston's other works. The novel is rampant with allusions to pop-culture and literature, especially the 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">French Revolution of 1848</span> End of the reign of King Louis Philippe and start of the Second Republic

The French Revolution of 1848, also known as the February Revolution, was a period of civil unrest in France, in February 1848, that led to the collapse of the July Monarchy and the foundation of the French Second Republic. It sparked the wave of revolutions of 1848.

Russia's War Crimes House in Davos, formerly Russia House is building 68, Promenade in Davos. It was a platform for promoting Russian initiatives. Then, during the World Economic Forum in 2021, it informed about Ukrainian civilian war deaths. It was rented by Victor Pinchuk.

References