Tent of Miracles was written three years after the military overthrew Brazilian democracy, and it is part of a series Amado called "The Bahia Novels", works exploring the region's past. The novel chronicles the chaos that results when a prominent Columbia University professor arrives in Brazil, with nothing but praise on his lips for a long-forgotten local Bahian writer and self-taught social scientist named Pedro Archanjo. The year is 1968, which Levinson announces is the centennial of Archanjo's birth, setting off a media stampede to figure out who Archanjo was so that they can profit from a celebration of his life. When a few people finally uncover who Arcanjo was and what he espoused, media barons and advertisers are horrified to discover that he was an Afro-Brazilian social critic, womanizer and heavy drinker who died penniless in the gutter. So, they invent their own Pedro Archanjo, which they hype in various advertising-driven events, enlisting some Brazilian academics who are as superficial and self-promoting as Levinson.
The novel moves back and forth between events in the life of the historical hero, Pedro Archanjo, and the present. Most of the characters are types that lend themselves to the author's relentless satire. The historical setting is the colorful old Pelourinho neighborhood of Salvador, Bahia, that flows down the hill from the main plaza, where Archanjo works as a lowly runner at the School of Medicine adjacent to the cathedral. The place of the title is the home of the hero and his best friend, Lidio Corro, which also serves as barber shop, cultural center, print shop and artist's studio. The historical sections explore Afro-Brazilian culture and racial discrimination. Author Jorge Amado once declared that "Brazil is a racial democracy", and the novel is consistent with that belief, because he situates all racism in the past.
The hero's male children are all over the city, but he is father to none. They call him "godfather," and he takes one of his "godchildren," Tadeu, under his wing to help him pursue an engineering degree. The womanizing of the hero serves to highlight the belief of both Pedro Archanjo and the novel's author that uninhibited sexual passion between people of different races and colors (and the resulting mixed children) is Brazil's unique solution to racism. The theory behind this view was disseminated by Brazilian sociologist and historian Gilberto Freyre in his treatise Casa-Grande & Senzala (1933), translated into English as The Masters and the Slaves. A number of the female characters in the novel are highly sexualized in ways that, according to critics, represent racial stereotypes.
In the face of criticism of his portrayals of women and Afro-Brazilian culture, Jorge Amado declared: "It is not a question of literary pride. It is only the certainty that no one until today had dared to look face-to-face with so much love at Bahian humanity and its problems. No one knows better than I, who wrote them, what the weaknesses and defects of my novels are. But, by the same token, no one can measure the sacrifice they cost me, the honesty that went into their making, the disinterest and pure love that made the novelist return to his people."[attribution needed]
Beyond Amado's treatment of women and Afro-Brazilian culture, Tent of Miracles is a powerful[according to whom?] satire of modern Brazilian institutions, especially the mass media and parts of academia. Notably spared from the author's knife is the Brazilian military, which in 1967 was detaining, torturing and exiling some of Amado's political friends. A few scholars have suggested that the novel hides in its story a parable critical of the military dictatorship, particularly through the portrayal of a repressive but ineffectual assistant police commissioner, Pedrito Gordo. If so, the ridicule was mild, perhaps urging Brazilians to not be afraid of the regime, and so well disguised that the novel was not censored.
Bahia is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population and the 5th-largest by area. Bahia's capital is the city of Salvador, on a spit of land separating the Bay of All Saints from the Atlantic. Once a monarchial stronghold dominated by agricultural, slaving, and ranching interests, Bahia is now a predominantly working-class industrial and agricultural state. The state is home to 7% of the Brazilian population and produces 4.2% of the country's GDP.
Jorge Leal Amado de Faria 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, notably 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.
The Country of Carnival is a Brazilian novel. It was written by Jorge Amado in 1931. 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.
Sweat is a Brazilian Modernist novel. It was written by Jorge Amado in 1934. It has yet to be translated into English.
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.
Sea of Death is a Brazilian Modernist novel written by Jorge Amado. Amado wrote the novel in response to his first arrest for "being a communist". The novel follows the lives of poor sailors around Bahia, and their relationship with the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé, especially the sea goddess Iemanjá. The novel's style and themes include many traits that characterize Amado's later work.
Captains of the Sands is a Brazilian novel written by Jorge Amado in 1937.
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands is a fantasy novel by Brazilian writer Jorge Amado, published in 1966; it was translated into English by Harriet de Onís in 1969. The novel was adapted for the first time into the 1976 film Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands.
Pen, Sword, Camisole is a Brazilian Modernist novel. It was written by Jorge Amado in 1979. It was published in English in 1985, with a translation by Helen R. Lane.
Showdown is a Brazilian Modernist novel. It was written by Jorge Amado in 1984.
The War of the Saints is a Brazilian Modernist novel by Jorge Amado first published in 1988. An English translation by Gregory Rabassa appeared in 1993.
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.
Dorival Caymmi was a Brazilian singer, songwriter, actor, and painter active for more than 70 years, beginning in 1933. He contributed to the birth of Brazil's bossa nova movement, and several of his samba pieces, such as "Samba da Minha Terra", "Doralice" and "Saudade da Bahia", have become staples of música popular brasileira. Equally notable are his ballads celebrating the fishermen and women of Bahia, including "Promessa de Pescador", "O Que É Que a Baiana Tem?", and "Milagre". Caymmi composed about 100 songs in his lifetime, and many of his works are now considered to be Brazilian classics. Both Brazilian and non-Brazilian musicians have covered his songs.
Zélia Gattai Amado de Faria was a Brazilian photographer, memoirist, novelist and author of children's literature, as well as a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. Gattai wrote 14 different literary works, including children's books and her own personal memoirs have been widely published.
Héctor Julio Páride Bernabó was an Argentine-Brazilian artist, researcher, historian and journalist. His nickname Carybé, a type of piranha, comes from his time in the scouts. He died of heart failure after the meeting of the candomblé community's secular board of directors, the Cruz Santa Opô Afonjá Society, of which he was a member.
Afro-Brazilian literature has existed in Brazil since the mid-19th century with the publication of Maria Firmina dos Reis's novel Ursula in 1859. Other writers from the late 19th century and early 20th century include Machado de Assis, Cruz e Sousa and Lima Barreto. Yet, Afro-Brazilian literature as a genre that recognized the ethnic and cultural origins of the writer did not gain national prominence in Brazil until the 1970s with the revival of Black Consciousness politics known as the Movimento Negro.
Tenda dos Milagres is a 1977 Brazilian drama film directed by Nelson Pereira dos Santos, based on the novel of the same name by Jorge Amado. Starring Hugo Carvana, Sonia Dias and Severino Dada, it exposes and satirizes racism in Brazilian society—the most notable example being a flashback scene where Brazilians are shown listening with approving interest to Nazi race theories in the late 1930s. Tenda dos Milagres was shot in Salvador, Bahia.
Manuel Raimundo Querino was a prominent Afro-Brazilian artist and intellectual. Querino's pioneering ethnographic works focused on the contributions of Africans to Brazilian history and culture. Assessing his contributions, the historian E. Bradford Burns says, "Querino was the first black to write Brazilian history, a task to which he brought a much-needed perspective."
The Bahian Conspiracy, also known as Revolt of the Tailors and recently also called Revolt of Buzios, was a late eighteenth century slave rebellion in the then Captaincy of Bahia, in the State of Brazil. Unlike the Inconfidência Mineira of 1789, it was a separatist movement with a popular base and extensive black participation.
The Meritorious Citizen of the Freedom and Social Justice João Mangabeira decoration is the highest award granted by Legislative Assembly of Bahia. The title honors João Mangabeira, an outstanding in defense of democratic rule of law, great jurist and parliamentarian.
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