Este vigoroso e atual romance-denúncia, escrito em linguagem que capta não só o vocabulário como a poesia da fala indígena, recupera personagens e dá sequência a episódios de O garanhão das praias, mostrando o declínio da raça e da cultura dos karajás do Araguaia, depois da aproximação dos brancos, espoliadores de terras e degradadores das tradições.
Mostrado, de início, o apogeu e pureza dos karajás, o romance transforma Kuryala, a personagem-título, num símbolo da raça. Escolhido, entre os demais jovens, para ser o futuro chefe da aldeia, Kuryala estagia na casa das máscaras sagradas e conhece todos os ritos de passagem da puberdade à juventude, conforme a tradição da tribo. Adulto, casa-se com Akurriro e torna-se capitão, revelando-se forte, sábio e justo. A fatalidade, porém, na forma da cegueira advinda de uma catarata que os brancos se negam a operar, atinge-o e obriga-o a renunciar à chefia dos seus. A partir desse momento, a decadência de Kuryala caminha paralelamente à degradação de sua raça, à medida que os brancos avançam, apoderando-se das terras indígenas e trazendo vícios e doenças até então desconhecidos. A região é abandonada pelos sucessivos governos, desde o de Getúlio Vargas até o de Juscelino Kubitschek, presidentes que visitam o Araguaia, mas que não assumem de fato a sua realidade.
José Mauro was born in Rio de Janeiro on February 26 of 1920. His family was very poor, and when he was still very young, he migrated to Natal where relatives took care of him. Entering the Medical Faculty, José abandoned the course of studies in his second year and returned to Rio de Janeiro.[citation needed] There he worked as a boxing instructor and even as a painter's model.
José iniciated his literature with the novel Banana Brava. His greatest success was his novel Meu Pé de Laranja Lima, that tells about his own personal experiences and the shocks he suffered in his childhood with the abrupt changes of life.
José was part Indian and part Portuguese. He passed his childhood in Natal. When he was 9 years old, he learned to swim, and with pleasure he still remembers the days when he threw himself to the waters of the Potengi River to train for swimming competitions. José frequently went to the sea. He won many swimming competitions and, like every boy, liked to play soccer and to climb on trees. José's first job, from 16 yars old to 17 years old, was a sparring partner of featherweight boxers. Next, he worked in a farm in Mazomba, his job was to carry bananas. After that, he became a fisherman and lived on the coastline at Rio de Janeiro. Later he moved to Recife, where he became an elementary teacher and teacher at a fishermen's center.
Because of his prodigious capacity of telling stories, possessing a fabulous memory, brilliant imagination, and a large human experience, José felt he was obligated to become an author, and started to write novels when he was 22 years old.
The author had his original methods of writing. In the beginning, he would choose the scenarios where the characters would move. Then he would transfer to this place and do rigorous studies there. To write the novel Arara Vermelha, José traveled 450 leagues in the brute wilderness. Next, he builds all the novel, determining even the sentences of the dialogues. He had a memory that, for a long time, allowed him to remember every little detail of his studied scenario. "When the story is entirely made in imagination", reveals the author, "is when I begin to write. I only work I have the impression that the novel is exiting from all the pores of the body."
José relates that after finishing writing the first chapter, he passes to the conclusion of the novel, without even elaborating the plot. "That, he explains "because all the chapters are already produced mentally. It is not really important writing a sequence, like alterating the order. In the end everything goes well". José was a cinemactor and worked in films such as Carteira Modelo 19, Fronteiras do Inferno, Floradas na Serra, Canto do Mar (of which he wrote the screenplay), Na Garganta do Diabo, and A Ilha. He won many prizes, such as the Saci prize to best supporting actor, the Saci prize to the best actor of the year, and the Governo do Estado prize to best actor of the year. His novels Arara Vermelha and Vazante were filmed.