Orphans of Eldorado
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
This reimagining of the Amazon’s greatest legend by the prize-winning Brazilian author of The Brothers “does what every good telling of a myth should” (Financial Times).
The setting for this fable is Eldorado, the Enchanted city that inhabited the fevered dreams of European navigators and conquistadors, but eluded all attempts to find it on the map. Some have linked it to Manaus, Brazil’s capitol city in the Amazon Basin, and it is here that Arminto Cordovil lives with his father Amando in a white mansion.
Theirs relationship is full of fury and limitless ambition. Separating father and son is a remarkable cast of characters, from Angelina, the dead mother, to Denisio, the infernal boatman, and at the centre, Dinaura, a girl who betwitches Arminto and dreams of Eldorado…
Orphans of Eldorado is an “unnerving and otherworldly” fable of love, family, longing, and despair. “Somewhere in the vivid descriptions of the rich Amazonian landscape, and amongst the complex life story of the protagonist, the reader becomes enchanted by the mysteries of the text” (The Skinny, UK).
“A tough and gifted novelist.”—A.S. Byatt
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Inspired by a comingling of the myth of Eldorado and the Amazonian legend of the Enchanted City, a mystical civilization at the bottom of the deepest river, Brazilian writer Hatoum's lushly realized newest (after Ashes of the Amazon) is set in early 20th century Brazil and tells the story of Arminto Cordovil and his search for a lost love. Though Arminto enjoyed a quiet life in his quaint hometown of Vila Bela, a fling with a trusted family servant led his father, a wealthy shipping magnate, to exile him; now in bustling Manaus, Arminto is shocked to find his father has died and left an enormous inheritance to his estranged son. At the funeral, Arminto becomes enamored with the mysterious Dinaura, an orphan living with Carmelite nuns. But just as their romance comes to life, Dinaura disappears, and Arminto must discover whether she has been taken to the Enchanted City, or otherwise run into the wilderness. Despite a keenly rendered sense of place, Hatoum's novella suffers from an identity crisis the book lacks the character and plot development of traditional fiction, as well as the wonder and grandiosity of myth.
