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Summary | Excerpt | Reviews | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
A spellbinding saga on a truly epic scale that brings to life Brazil and her history. A masterpiece… Brazil has the look and feel of an enchanted virgin forest, a totally new and original world for the reader-explorer to discover.
Through the lives of two powerful families, Brazil depicts five turbulent centuries in the history of a remarkable land. From colony to kingdom, from empire to nation, Brazil is filled with memorable people living through one of the great adventures in human history.
The Cavalcantis are among the original settlers and establish the classic Brazilian plantation — vast, powerful, built with slave labor. The da Silvas represent the second element in both contemporary and historical Brazil: pathfinders and prospectors. For generations, these adventurers have set their eyes on El Dorado, which they ultimately find — in a coffee fortune at São Paulo.
Brazil is an intensely human story — brutal and violent, tender and passionate. Perilous explorations through the Brazilian wilderness . . . the perpetual clash of pioneer and native, visionary and fortune hunter, master and slave, zealot and exploiter . . . the thunder of war on land and sea as European powers and South American nations pursue their territorial conquests. . . the triumphs and tragedies of a people who built a nation covering half the South American continent . . . all are here in one spell-binding saga.
Prologue
The Tupiniquin
May 1491
The boy was sitting beside a branch of the river that marked the end of his people's place. These lesser waters struggled through the clan's fields, their way broken here and there by the trunks of fallen trees, until their stream was lost in this green island.
He was Aruanã, son of Pojucan, and stood taller than most boys of his age. His mother, Obapira, had counted the first four or five seasons following his birth but then stopped, for the next age that mattered would come when he was ready for manhood. Now he had reached this stage. His limbs were well formed, his shoulders sturdy and straight. His jet-black hair was shaved back in a half-moon above the temples, from ear to ear, and his eyebrows were plucked. His lower lip was bored through in the custom of his people, and in it he wore a plug of white bone as large as his thumb.
Aruanã dangled his feet in the cool water. No one ever came here, because it was too ...
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