Ancient Tillage
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A Brazilian master novelist in English at last
For André, a young man growing up on a farm in Brazil, life consists of “the earth, the wheat, the bread, our table, and our family.” He loves the land, fears his austere, pious father, who preaches from the head of the table as if from a pulpit, and loathes himself as he begins to harbor shameful feelings for his sister Ana. Lyrical and sensual, written with biblical intensity, this classic Brazilian coming-of-age novel follows André’s tormented path. He falls into the comforting embrace of liquor as—in his psychological and sexual awakening—he must choose between body and soul, obligation and freedom.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This slim, intensely powerful novel portrays the coming-of-age of a young man named Andr who grew up on his family's farm in Brazil but has now fled to an unnamed city in an act of rebellion against his domineering, extremely religious, and constantly sermonizing father. Andr is also running from feelings for his sister, Ana, illicit desires that he expresses with agonized passion in an almost phantasmagoric scene alone with Ana in the family's chapel. Numbing his agony with the help of generous amounts of wine, Andr languishes in a boarding house until his brother, Pedro, comes to bring him home. In prose tonally reminiscent of scripture, the novel explores the interior life of a character on the brink of an emotional and sexual awakening set against the tragic portrayal of a family on the verge of disintegration. Newly translated from a text originally published in 1975, this is an essential and unflinching work that combines torment and desire to arrive at an explosive examination of ancestry and the world we inherit. The novel's conclusion, taking place at a homecoming party for Andr , is breathtaking in its almost mythological expansiveness.
