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A Death In Brazil: A Book Of Omissions
Una muerte en Brasil se articula a partir de la confrontación de dos clases en discordia en la historia de la de Fernando Collor de Mello y la de Luís Inácio da Silva, "Lula", que también llegaría a ser presidente a finales de 2002. En la ciudad de Recife sienta su base de operaciones Peter Robb para darnos a conocer no sólo todo cuanto ha contribuido a establecer el presente de Brasil, sino los mismos personajes de ese presente.
372 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
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929 people want to read
About the author
Peter Robb
30 books42 followersBorn 1946. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Robb
Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 111 reviews
January 27, 2023
This is one of those books – an urbane cross between history, food writing, and travelogue – where everything depends on how you feel about the writer. It's easy to come across as either too cynical or too innocent; too foreign or too local; too ill-informed, or assuming too much prior knowledge. Too much an insider or too much an outsider.
Peter Robb gets it just about perfect, which meant the narrative tone carried me through this quite happily even when my attention or approval might otherwise have wandered. It doesn't attempt to be exhaustive on its subject; Robb's explorations of Brazil revolve mainly around the geographical northeast (he lived on and off in Bahia) and, in political terms, on the rise and fall of early-90s president Fernando Collor and his shadowy campaign treasurer PC Farias.
It's Farias's fate which gives the book its title, though there are many deaths within the pages. (The author's was nearly one of them – yes, this is the kind of book that has plenty of good traveller's tales along the way.) Not least because Robb takes time to examine the country's history of slavery, which was ‘by far the largest system of slavery in the New World’ and which, he argues convincingly, was different from slavery in the United States in many crucial ways, among them the constant and open interbreeding between different peoples which brought about the infinite multiracial gradations of modern Brazil.
This ‘unusually complex mesh of promiscuity and repression’ is something that Robb sees behind many of the issues of modern times. Brazil is, for him, primarily an archetype of social and economic inequality, a country where favelas of the most abject deprivation are next to hypermodern skyscrapers, and the one percent shuttle back and forth from mansion to office in armoured limousines and private helicopters. (As I write these words from a hotel room in São Paulo, I can see one of these helicopters landing on cue on the roof of the building opposite.)
This book was written in 2003, and it's a shock to the system to see Robb quoting, as evidence of Brazil's wealth gap, the statistic that the richest one percent of the people had fifteen percent of the wealth, given that the richest one percent in the US held fully 32 percent of the wealth in 2022. (Brazil is still worse.) These issues are with us more than ever and the book still feels very relevant considering that it's twenty years old.
It feels relevant in other ways, too. Among other things, A Death in Brazil is about the rise of Lula, a flawed but nevertheless groundbreaking workers' champion. Robb first encounters Lula speaking to a huddle of unionists from the back of an old truck; the book ends with his triumphant election as president after having lost the previous general election. Again, it was strange to read about this as I flew in in 2023, where Lula was again celebrating an election as president after having lost the previous general election. I know they say history repeats itself, but sometimes you'd think it would be more subtle about it.
Lula was a man of the people from a poor background, yet the people took a long time to warm to him. Robb is baffled to find that one of his working-class friends is planning to vote against him in '98 (one of the many elections Lula lost), but it's the age-old story:
The book is at its best when it juxtaposes modern political intrigue with incidents from Brazil's troubled history. Robb doesn't do anything so vulgar as make explicit connections, but the issues are there to join up if you are inclined to do so. Given his interest in Bahia, I was happy to see him looking in detail at the War of Canudos, which I recently experienced through Mario Vargas Llosa's novel The War of the End of the World. Robb takes a somewhat dim view of that book, regretting that Vargas Llosa ‘helped to keep the phantasm of a religious revolt in Canudos alive’. For Robb, and the numerous sources to which he refers, Canudos had little to do with religion, and was instead another example of Brazil's much more pragmatic struggles about social and economic disadvantage.
I'm not sure if it should be surprising or not that I learned more about Canudos from a few paragraphs here than I did in 650 pages of fiction, but in any case it reinforced how important Canudos is to Brazil's sense of mythology, history, and even etymology. (Did you know that the word ‘favela’ comes from Monte Favella, the name of the hill overlooking Canudos where the army were haphazardly encamped? I would have been happy with the book for this fact alone.)
I don't know Brazil well enough to judge this book's accuracy on capturing the country's essence. Alex Bellos, who lived there for years, famously said it was the best portrait of Brazil available. As someone who's read a lot of this kind of book, I found that this one struck me as especially well done; if nothing else, it's just a great sustained piece of writing which pulls together goat's-stomach feasts, telenovelas, assassinations, sexual intrigue and football, until you, like the author, are half-convinced by his insistence that this is, indeed, ‘the oddest and most thrilling country in the Western Hemisphere’.
Peter Robb gets it just about perfect, which meant the narrative tone carried me through this quite happily even when my attention or approval might otherwise have wandered. It doesn't attempt to be exhaustive on its subject; Robb's explorations of Brazil revolve mainly around the geographical northeast (he lived on and off in Bahia) and, in political terms, on the rise and fall of early-90s president Fernando Collor and his shadowy campaign treasurer PC Farias.
It's Farias's fate which gives the book its title, though there are many deaths within the pages. (The author's was nearly one of them – yes, this is the kind of book that has plenty of good traveller's tales along the way.) Not least because Robb takes time to examine the country's history of slavery, which was ‘by far the largest system of slavery in the New World’ and which, he argues convincingly, was different from slavery in the United States in many crucial ways, among them the constant and open interbreeding between different peoples which brought about the infinite multiracial gradations of modern Brazil.
This ‘unusually complex mesh of promiscuity and repression’ is something that Robb sees behind many of the issues of modern times. Brazil is, for him, primarily an archetype of social and economic inequality, a country where favelas of the most abject deprivation are next to hypermodern skyscrapers, and the one percent shuttle back and forth from mansion to office in armoured limousines and private helicopters. (As I write these words from a hotel room in São Paulo, I can see one of these helicopters landing on cue on the roof of the building opposite.)
This book was written in 2003, and it's a shock to the system to see Robb quoting, as evidence of Brazil's wealth gap, the statistic that the richest one percent of the people had fifteen percent of the wealth, given that the richest one percent in the US held fully 32 percent of the wealth in 2022. (Brazil is still worse.) These issues are with us more than ever and the book still feels very relevant considering that it's twenty years old.
It feels relevant in other ways, too. Among other things, A Death in Brazil is about the rise of Lula, a flawed but nevertheless groundbreaking workers' champion. Robb first encounters Lula speaking to a huddle of unionists from the back of an old truck; the book ends with his triumphant election as president after having lost the previous general election. Again, it was strange to read about this as I flew in in 2023, where Lula was again celebrating an election as president after having lost the previous general election. I know they say history repeats itself, but sometimes you'd think it would be more subtle about it.
Lula was a man of the people from a poor background, yet the people took a long time to warm to him. Robb is baffled to find that one of his working-class friends is planning to vote against him in '98 (one of the many elections Lula lost), but it's the age-old story:
He wanted to be represented not by a stumpy bearded metalworker who had lost a finger in a lathe and got lost in Portuguese syntax, but by a tall, elegantly suited and mellifluous graduate in law, a person who knew the world and could meet with foreign leaders as an equal and an ornament to Brazilian civilization.
The book is at its best when it juxtaposes modern political intrigue with incidents from Brazil's troubled history. Robb doesn't do anything so vulgar as make explicit connections, but the issues are there to join up if you are inclined to do so. Given his interest in Bahia, I was happy to see him looking in detail at the War of Canudos, which I recently experienced through Mario Vargas Llosa's novel The War of the End of the World. Robb takes a somewhat dim view of that book, regretting that Vargas Llosa ‘helped to keep the phantasm of a religious revolt in Canudos alive’. For Robb, and the numerous sources to which he refers, Canudos had little to do with religion, and was instead another example of Brazil's much more pragmatic struggles about social and economic disadvantage.
I'm not sure if it should be surprising or not that I learned more about Canudos from a few paragraphs here than I did in 650 pages of fiction, but in any case it reinforced how important Canudos is to Brazil's sense of mythology, history, and even etymology. (Did you know that the word ‘favela’ comes from Monte Favella, the name of the hill overlooking Canudos where the army were haphazardly encamped? I would have been happy with the book for this fact alone.)
I don't know Brazil well enough to judge this book's accuracy on capturing the country's essence. Alex Bellos, who lived there for years, famously said it was the best portrait of Brazil available. As someone who's read a lot of this kind of book, I found that this one struck me as especially well done; if nothing else, it's just a great sustained piece of writing which pulls together goat's-stomach feasts, telenovelas, assassinations, sexual intrigue and football, until you, like the author, are half-convinced by his insistence that this is, indeed, ‘the oddest and most thrilling country in the Western Hemisphere’.
December 3, 2023
I've read this book at least three times straight through, and dip into various sections of it even more often than that. I think this is clearly the best of Mr. Robb's books; not only is the clothesline very taut, so to speak, but the stories he hangs off of it are extremely effective in conveying fear, lust, appetite, friendship and various other things that make us human.
Robb does a good job of defending his statement that Brazil is the most interesting country in the Western hemisphere. Starting with the nominal subject of the book, we're introduced to a President who's far weaker and nastier than George W. Bush, led by a shadowy figure who's far stronger and far far nastier than Karl Rove. (Sorry Republicans, but it is is what it is.) It's difficult to imagine how such a large and populous nation can be led by such obvious criminals, but Robb explains the dynamics of Brazilian politics with an admirable thoroughness, without becoming too dry. Meanwhile, a "man of the people" rises through the ranks and ultimately triumphs (though he, too, is later indicted for far lesser crimes after this book was published.)
But that isn't really what the book is about. What it's *really* about is his love affair with Brazil, even if he occasionally felt the need to flee when the crime rate spiked. He set himself up in the non-touristic city of Recife, and we learn about his friends, the restaurant/bar that became his home away from home, his (amazing) diet, and the essence of life in that misunderstood country.
Mr. Robb is a meticulous researcher and, more than that, a gifted narrator, and this book is a marvel.
Robb does a good job of defending his statement that Brazil is the most interesting country in the Western hemisphere. Starting with the nominal subject of the book, we're introduced to a President who's far weaker and nastier than George W. Bush, led by a shadowy figure who's far stronger and far far nastier than Karl Rove. (Sorry Republicans, but it is is what it is.) It's difficult to imagine how such a large and populous nation can be led by such obvious criminals, but Robb explains the dynamics of Brazilian politics with an admirable thoroughness, without becoming too dry. Meanwhile, a "man of the people" rises through the ranks and ultimately triumphs (though he, too, is later indicted for far lesser crimes after this book was published.)
But that isn't really what the book is about. What it's *really* about is his love affair with Brazil, even if he occasionally felt the need to flee when the crime rate spiked. He set himself up in the non-touristic city of Recife, and we learn about his friends, the restaurant/bar that became his home away from home, his (amazing) diet, and the essence of life in that misunderstood country.
Mr. Robb is a meticulous researcher and, more than that, a gifted narrator, and this book is a marvel.
April 28, 2016
Once I was having an informal conversation with an Australian friend of mine and I was recommended A death in Brazil. "If you want to understand where you come from and why your people are like they are you ought to read this book" said my friend.
Wow!!! I'm speechless. It's fascinating reading things from your country/culture that's written by someone who's not necessarily part of it.
From the "beginning" things seemed to go wrong. The Indios (original people of Brazil) who'd been living there for a long time shared their lands with the whites who claimed to have discovered what it was inhabited...then the colonisation began and so slavery. Then slaves from Africa mixed with Indios from Brazil and white from Europe originated the people of Brazil. Some could say "what a mess" but others say "that's cool"
I was young (early 90's) when I heard something about PC Farias and Fernando Collor, the elected president of Brazil. As time passed, Collor was impeached and PC was killed it never occurred to me to read anything about them...as it never occurred to many people from my generation as well and Peter did a fantastic job in his book.
A death in Brazil sounds like a thriller involving power, corruption and an obscene state (or country - as you wish) where anything and anyone can be bought with money...a lot of money.
If you wish to know in a very condensed yet provocative and precise way what it is Brazil and its people A death in Brazil will certainly provide you with that. The author was even further as to precisely mention how Brazilian people can be alienated with telenovela (soap opera) and whatever else TV Globo throw down their throats.
Hopefully the author will come up with a following book sharing the current facts of a falling state on the hands of yet another bunch of incompetent people where even clowns have their seat in the congress.
Wow!!! I'm speechless. It's fascinating reading things from your country/culture that's written by someone who's not necessarily part of it.
From the "beginning" things seemed to go wrong. The Indios (original people of Brazil) who'd been living there for a long time shared their lands with the whites who claimed to have discovered what it was inhabited...then the colonisation began and so slavery. Then slaves from Africa mixed with Indios from Brazil and white from Europe originated the people of Brazil. Some could say "what a mess" but others say "that's cool"
I was young (early 90's) when I heard something about PC Farias and Fernando Collor, the elected president of Brazil. As time passed, Collor was impeached and PC was killed it never occurred to me to read anything about them...as it never occurred to many people from my generation as well and Peter did a fantastic job in his book.
A death in Brazil sounds like a thriller involving power, corruption and an obscene state (or country - as you wish) where anything and anyone can be bought with money...a lot of money.
If you wish to know in a very condensed yet provocative and precise way what it is Brazil and its people A death in Brazil will certainly provide you with that. The author was even further as to precisely mention how Brazilian people can be alienated with telenovela (soap opera) and whatever else TV Globo throw down their throats.
Hopefully the author will come up with a following book sharing the current facts of a falling state on the hands of yet another bunch of incompetent people where even clowns have their seat in the congress.
July 10, 2008
I finished another great book tonight. It is heavy, dense, a complicated read that may not be for everyone. However, if you have any interest in the history and culture of Brazil, then you've got to get this book. A colleague and mentor of mine, Paul Kawata, bought an apartment in Rio a couple of years ago, and spending some time talking with him in California this past spring sparked my interest.
A Death in Brazil: A Book of Omissions is Peter Robb's seductive, intriguing, sometimes terrifying account of Brazil's rich tapestry of culture, politics, music, food, and sex. Written in a sometimes confusing (or maybe confused) style, the book manages to enrich the reader's understanding of this country's wildly complicated past, while entertaining us in the style of one of their famous telenovelas.
Brazil is a country about which I knew very little. The largest country in South America and fifth largest in the world, Brazil was inhabited for more than 10,000 years before its “discovery” by Portuguese explorers in 1500. It is home to the world's largest Catholic population and the second largest Christian population.
Many of the vibrant stories that Robb tells keep you on the edge of your seat with hope, only to crush you under the weight of social injustice. I was particularly horrified by the history of slavery and the ways in which human life often meant so little. Of course, my own U.S. history is not so radically different, perhaps a reason for my terror. His stories about political corruption, abuses of power, murder, espionage, and the like are even more powerful as they are so recent.
If you saw the shockingly disturbing movie, City of God, based on the 1997 book by Paulo Lins, you witnessed life in one of Brazil's hundreds of favelas, or slums. The book and movie paint the picture of what develops when thousands of people become displaced from war or famine or economic disaster. Robb's book goes further, helping us uncover and discover the root causes, maybe even the plan, for these wretched, horrible places.
Robb offers frequent respites from the despair through his vivid descriptions of the beauty of the land and the innocence of so many of its people. His love of food and the details of his gastronomic pursuits alone made me move Brazil to the top of my “Must Explore” list. I've eaten at many Brazilian restaurants in my day, but now understanding the important history of these dishes, I can become even more adventurous and erudite in my eating.
The book ends close to where it begins, offering not much more than a simple thought about how quickly change occurs in this land of passionate and intoxicating extremes. It isn't preachy. It isn't sentimental. It doesn't profess to offer solutions to the country's social ills. Instead, Robb's book is a cross between travelogue, investigative journalism, and that classic Brazilian telenovela.
A Death in Brazil: A Book of Omissions is Peter Robb's seductive, intriguing, sometimes terrifying account of Brazil's rich tapestry of culture, politics, music, food, and sex. Written in a sometimes confusing (or maybe confused) style, the book manages to enrich the reader's understanding of this country's wildly complicated past, while entertaining us in the style of one of their famous telenovelas.
Brazil is a country about which I knew very little. The largest country in South America and fifth largest in the world, Brazil was inhabited for more than 10,000 years before its “discovery” by Portuguese explorers in 1500. It is home to the world's largest Catholic population and the second largest Christian population.
Many of the vibrant stories that Robb tells keep you on the edge of your seat with hope, only to crush you under the weight of social injustice. I was particularly horrified by the history of slavery and the ways in which human life often meant so little. Of course, my own U.S. history is not so radically different, perhaps a reason for my terror. His stories about political corruption, abuses of power, murder, espionage, and the like are even more powerful as they are so recent.
If you saw the shockingly disturbing movie, City of God, based on the 1997 book by Paulo Lins, you witnessed life in one of Brazil's hundreds of favelas, or slums. The book and movie paint the picture of what develops when thousands of people become displaced from war or famine or economic disaster. Robb's book goes further, helping us uncover and discover the root causes, maybe even the plan, for these wretched, horrible places.
Robb offers frequent respites from the despair through his vivid descriptions of the beauty of the land and the innocence of so many of its people. His love of food and the details of his gastronomic pursuits alone made me move Brazil to the top of my “Must Explore” list. I've eaten at many Brazilian restaurants in my day, but now understanding the important history of these dishes, I can become even more adventurous and erudite in my eating.
The book ends close to where it begins, offering not much more than a simple thought about how quickly change occurs in this land of passionate and intoxicating extremes. It isn't preachy. It isn't sentimental. It doesn't profess to offer solutions to the country's social ills. Instead, Robb's book is a cross between travelogue, investigative journalism, and that classic Brazilian telenovela.
November 10, 2007
Aussie career ex-pat Peter Robb weaves history, politics, travel, and gastronomy into an intriguing, seamless tapestry of Brazil. A modern-day Alexis de Tocqueville of Brazil, he seems to explain things about this foreign land that even the locals don't fully understand... or at least that is the feeling you get from this controlled descent into her rich and sordid past.
November 22, 2019
There is more than one death in Peter Robb's A Death in Brazil: A Book of Omissions. It seems that Brazilian politics is even more corrupt and deadly than I ever imagined. Robb concentrates on the strip of the coast between Recife and Salvador, particularly the former. There is a smattering about Brazilian cuisine, history (particularly the 1890s campaign against Canudos), literature (particularly Machado de Assis), but mostly politics.
There is a good deal about Fernando Collor de Mello; his "fixer," PC Farias; his brother Augusto; and his successor, Lula de Silva:
There is a good deal about Fernando Collor de Mello; his "fixer," PC Farias; his brother Augusto; and his successor, Lula de Silva:
Fernando Collor never really got over 1990 and the failure of his bank seizure. His end was in his beginning, and the scandals in the airline industry, the oil industry and the road transport industry followed at ever shorter intervals. In Brazil, however, the system was elastic. It stretched and stretched, even when leaders failed to manage the economy, even when they were manifestly corrupt, and the scandals were not generally seen as scandals at he time.This is an excellent background for anyone interesting in visiting Brazil -- or staying away with a look of horror on their face.
March 21, 2009
This probably isn't for most of my Goodreads friends, but this was fascinating and touching, tinged with sadness. The history of Brasil is messed up and corrupt. The author has lived in Brasil, Europe, and the United States for many years each. He compares and explains things well as he weaves back and forth from history to the present and his own experiences in Brasil. The book chronicles culture which I loved as I compare my own experiences, but I especially appreciated the deeper understanding I got of the history and politics behind things I saw in Brasil. The corruption is heart-wrenching and often sickening as in blatant killing and theft.
I heard rumblings of that in stories about the Policia Militar (The everyday police is the "Military Police" down there and apparently the name fits), but never experienced anything like that myself. The prominent politician chronicled, Lula, unsuccessfully ran for president for the first time when I was living there in 1998. I have somewhere a little flyer of his promising food on every plate and a job for every person. He won the presidency in 2002 I believe.
I read this 6 or 7 years ago and am fuzzy on the details, but I remember one especially intense moment. The author has connections to a northern city where he often stayed. He often ate at an outdoor restaurant commonly frequented by this powerful background government guy the author had discovered was responsible for covered-up murders. He tries to meet him and actually ask about those murders and I remember being really enthralled as he risks his life. Anyone who has lived in Brasil would be interested in this I think,
I heard rumblings of that in stories about the Policia Militar (The everyday police is the "Military Police" down there and apparently the name fits), but never experienced anything like that myself. The prominent politician chronicled, Lula, unsuccessfully ran for president for the first time when I was living there in 1998. I have somewhere a little flyer of his promising food on every plate and a job for every person. He won the presidency in 2002 I believe.
I read this 6 or 7 years ago and am fuzzy on the details, but I remember one especially intense moment. The author has connections to a northern city where he often stayed. He often ate at an outdoor restaurant commonly frequented by this powerful background government guy the author had discovered was responsible for covered-up murders. He tries to meet him and actually ask about those murders and I remember being really enthralled as he risks his life. Anyone who has lived in Brasil would be interested in this I think,
January 3, 2019
On the cover of the copy of this book I purchased out of Powell's books in Portland reads a quote from Peter Carey which reads, "An astonishing feat of storytelling." That line speaks volumes about the book yet does not go far enough. This book is amazing and I learned more about a culture and a history about a country that I never thought I would know. Peter Robb's retelling of the history of Brazil and of his travel's through the country are told in a way that make you think you are there experiencing the event. There were certain times while reading this book that I felt swept with emotion ranging from jealousy of wanting to have been there to experience the moment or complete horror of the atrocities that I am reading about. If you have any ambition to learn about the history of Brazil or its culture this is the book you should read. It is safe to say that I would recommend this book to anyone. This is a book that I want to read again.
October 31, 2024
I’ve read this book two years in a row because it gave me so much insight into Brazil, and the minute I finished the book, I could feel the rich and lavish knowledge slipping away. I wanted to remember what Brazil has endured.
During the second read, I’ve come to really appreciate (in awe) how the author managed to seamlessly weave snippets of brutal history with mouthwatering description of food, travel logs, political anecdotes, and personal stories. The book is just so generously packed, there’s no easy way to summarize it. But I find the chapters about slavery and the war of Canudos the most important and heartfelt, albeit written deliberately in a distant and impartial tone. How could human beings ever allow this to happen to other sentient human beings? I was often at a loss of words and had to stare into space and let my heart take a break.
Overall, a fascinating read, would revisit again.
During the second read, I’ve come to really appreciate (in awe) how the author managed to seamlessly weave snippets of brutal history with mouthwatering description of food, travel logs, political anecdotes, and personal stories. The book is just so generously packed, there’s no easy way to summarize it. But I find the chapters about slavery and the war of Canudos the most important and heartfelt, albeit written deliberately in a distant and impartial tone. How could human beings ever allow this to happen to other sentient human beings? I was often at a loss of words and had to stare into space and let my heart take a break.
Overall, a fascinating read, would revisit again.
November 29, 2022
For anyone planning on travelling to Brazil for the first time and wanting to venture further than Rio this book is well worth a read. It goes into the history, food and politics of Brazil. The history jumps back and forth a bit as it covers 1500 when the Portuguese fleet land in Northeastern Brazil to 2003 when Luis Inacio Lula da Silva is sworn in as president of Brazil in about 350 pages. It includes a good index of further reading and timeline at the back if you want to do further reading on on particular time period.
March 22, 2024
Another stunner from this guy. I love the way he writes.
March 29, 2019
I found this a really frustrating book, at times the prose was fabulous-I felt like smell, taste and feel Brazil. Then it got so confused and opaque I couldn’t follow it at all.
March 28, 2018
Entertaining read with lots of great insight on Brazil and the characteristics of Brazilians with their virtues and their flaws.
December 29, 2012
Another sweeping history, travelogue and investigation of culture through food and politics by Peter Robb, A Death in Brazil tantalizes the senses with its evocative scenarios in contemporary and ancient times. Robb has a remarkable way of making his own presence felt as he walks into the territory – literally and metaphorically – of so many crossing paths, yet without ever seeming to get lost or overly distracted. Every detail adds to the rich fabric of his tales, and the sense of wonder he brings forth that people have managed to live through such events (though many obviously haven’t made the whole distance) with enduring relationships to each other despite the on-going tensions.
If this volume is “A Death” one can only wonder what Robb considers to be “A Life”. Grippingly entertaining and educational.
If this volume is “A Death” one can only wonder what Robb considers to be “A Life”. Grippingly entertaining and educational.
November 26, 2013
A Death in Brazil is less about a singular death than it is about the transformation of a nation. The novel intimately shares glimpses of the lives of the people Robb encounters, while it also reveals broad swaths of the history of the nation. Corruptions that reach back for generations have kept in power the most wealthy and left the vast majority with a sense of powerlessness, but not all is dark and hopeless. Robb also traces the path of Luis "Lula" da Silva to an unlikely presidential victory, supported by legions of Brazil's youth.
The historical foundation is well-crafted and researched, yet this is not a dry treatise on the after effects of colonialism. It is a vibrant story, sensuously-written and capturing the hopes, fear, and pride of a nation.
The historical foundation is well-crafted and researched, yet this is not a dry treatise on the after effects of colonialism. It is a vibrant story, sensuously-written and capturing the hopes, fear, and pride of a nation.
July 6, 2016
I picked up a copy of this book at Green Apple. The copy I picked up was misplaced in the used mysteries section and I just assumed I was grabbing a fictional mystery set in Brazil. As you can read from the other reviews, it's a historical account of Brazil and how it's present (up to the early 2000s) is tied to its not-so-mysterious past.
I had been reading a lot about Brazil recently and this was right up my alley. It's odd how just picking up a book randomly at the bookstore winds up being tied to the present day woes Brazil is going through- The Rio Olympics problems, World Cup funding shenanigans, Dilma's impeachment and Lula's resurgence, and so on. A Death In Brazil will catch you up on the country's past and how it's tied to today.
I had been reading a lot about Brazil recently and this was right up my alley. It's odd how just picking up a book randomly at the bookstore winds up being tied to the present day woes Brazil is going through- The Rio Olympics problems, World Cup funding shenanigans, Dilma's impeachment and Lula's resurgence, and so on. A Death In Brazil will catch you up on the country's past and how it's tied to today.
January 19, 2011
I wanted to read this book as I was moving to Brazil the next year and though it'd be book background and light reading. It was interesting and did have lots of interesting, useful facts about Brazil and their politics, corruption, and history. However I did not like the authors writing style at all. There was no order to the book or his writing! I felt like it was just a bunch of paragraphs jumbled together.
This was a relatively small book and it took me 3 months to read because I had to force myself through it!
This was a relatively small book and it took me 3 months to read because I had to force myself through it!
July 17, 2021
Unsure what readership this book targets. That perhaps is one of its strengths, that it is unclassifiable and not clearly target-marketed. Part literary review, part history, part contemporary politics and corruption, the element which is almost completely absent is Robb himself.
Was drawn to this author after reading his book on Caravaggio, but this book did not interest me enough to explore more of his work.
Was drawn to this author after reading his book on Caravaggio, but this book did not interest me enough to explore more of his work.
August 19, 2015
This book fall between 3.5 to 4 stars. However it is an enjoyable and colourful book delving both into Brazil's history and current situation. A great book for people who live in Brazil and want to know more about the country's past..
April 10, 2018
Very politically focused. Quite a heavy and complicated read, but the author keeps it interesting with minor sidelines and history.
May 15, 2023
Very well worth reading - highly recommended.
March 9, 2017
Should be on the bookshelf of anyone interested in modern Brazil and its turmoil. What a beautiful country. What a mess.
November 20, 2023
Third of three books I read prior to a trip to Brazil. This was probably my favorite of the three, because it was written in a more easily accessible style and covered not only history, but food and travel. Parts were more like a memoir of the author's many visits to Brazil, parts were journalistic accounts of the crazy political lefts-and-rights the country has gone through, and parts were straight-up history lessons. I wish the integration of these three threaded narratives flowed more smoothly from one to the other. The modern, more personal stories are interwoven with historical narratives and most of the time, the switch between time periods is so abrupt I almost checked my neck for whiplash. Luckily, there is a timeline at the end of the book that the reader can look at to get their bearings every so often.
The book ends its tale in 2003 with the first election of Lula to the presidency. For those interested in knowing "the rest of the story," I highly recommend Beef, Bible and Bullets: Brazil in the Age of Bolsonaro by Richard Lapper. See my review on Goodreads
The third book I read about Brazil was Making Samba by Marc A. Hertzman. See my review here on Goodreads.
The book ends its tale in 2003 with the first election of Lula to the presidency. For those interested in knowing "the rest of the story," I highly recommend Beef, Bible and Bullets: Brazil in the Age of Bolsonaro by Richard Lapper. See my review on Goodreads
The third book I read about Brazil was Making Samba by Marc A. Hertzman. See my review here on Goodreads.
March 10, 2024
A jarring bit of trivia, but the author, talking about income inequality in Brazil at the time of the election in 1989, when I was working down there, says, "Brazil was a country where the richest 1% had 15% of the wealth. The poorest 40% had less than 0.1%". So I looked up the USA, and as of the end of 2023, the richest 10% had 66.6% of the wealth, and the lowest 50% only 2.6%. I know they're not direct comparisons, but I guess it gives us bragging rights - we're better than Brazil....for now. Interesting book. I worked in Brasil, on and off, between 1988 and 1992, so witnessed the rise to power and wealth of Fernando Collor de Mello and PC Farias. And I found the accounts of the slave republic of Palmares, and the utopian settlement of Canudos very interesting. But the whole is too much of a feijoada for my taste - a bit of history, a light travelog, a riff on literature and a few pointless asides about the author's sexual adventures. Without footnotes, it's hard to tell what is documented history and what is speculation or opinion. The author's musings on bacalhau suggest a lack of research. It's obvious that he has no clue about the lucrative Portuguese fishery off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland which continued (wars aside) from the late 16th Century to the 1950's. He should Google "Portugal's White Fleet". Salt cod wasn't a status symbol, they did it old-school, with 4-masted schooners and fishermen hand-lining from small john-dories. In the absence of refrigeration, salting was the only way to bring it home edible.
May 7, 2020
The jacket says it’s a travel book. I think it’s more a history but presented almost thriller like. Anything you would ever want to know about the seedy public and even seedier private stories covering the development of the fifth most populous country is here laid out in all its glory. From precolonial to the election of Lula, the narrator covers all the most fun topics from telenovelas to corruption, slavery to carnival, food and drink, sex and violence to family dynasties and family dysfunction. Oh Brazil. No wonder you turned out the way you did.
October 27, 2022
Very entertaining, the author has a deep knowledge and love of Brazil, and I loved the combination of historical background, travelogue and personal history / exploration of Brazil and its people. I liked his social justice take on the world, and enjoyed his writing style. He lost me a bit with the depth of his historical literary criticism, and some of the political stuff might only appeal to those with a specialist interest in Brazil - but it will appeal to anyone interested in Brazil, and would be perfect reading for someone visiting the place who wants to get to know it better.
February 9, 2024
Informative travel log. Loved it.
An enormous amount of research went into creating this book, which focuses on the northern corner of Brazil.
Robb writes beautifully of local people and places he visits, tells fascinating stories about colonisation and spends much of the book on the corruption of the so called Sixth Republic’ and the rise of Lula.
It is as fascinating to read now as it must have been when it was first published, especially since Lula is again President.
Fantastically fascinating book.
An enormous amount of research went into creating this book, which focuses on the northern corner of Brazil.
Robb writes beautifully of local people and places he visits, tells fascinating stories about colonisation and spends much of the book on the corruption of the so called Sixth Republic’ and the rise of Lula.
It is as fascinating to read now as it must have been when it was first published, especially since Lula is again President.
Fantastically fascinating book.
August 29, 2017
Really interesting facts about Brazil but the order was very jumbled and for someone with my short attention span it made it hard to follow points. Author would write about one thing then jump to the past jump back to the present go back to the same points in a different chapter. It was a very weird writing style which was not easy for my to follow. Overall if you want to learn about Brazil I would recommend this as a read just be weary it is not for everyone.
June 7, 2019
A wonderful personalized take on the history of Brazil that is surprisingly riveting, especially in the later sections when we track the rise and fall of recent presidents. Like the Brazilian soaps, it is a cliffhanger. The bad guy walks away and life goes on. Erudite without being heavy, at times you can nearly see the landscape and taste the food and under the story somewhere is the self- deprecating author who becomes yet another character in the narrative. I loved it all.
June 29, 2021
The injustices done to Indigenous and just about all the other people/peoples of the Nordeste that I read about in this book are terrifying. That aspect of the book's content overrides everything else for me. That Brazilians abuse, enslave, murder, and exploit other Brazilians in all these ways is infuriating and appalling. Why do some people money that badly?
Other than that, this book has helped me understand some of the historical references in Olodum lyrics.
Other than that, this book has helped me understand some of the historical references in Olodum lyrics.
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