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Sea of Death
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Wikipedia article
'Sea of Death' (Portuguese: 'Mar Morto') is a Brazilian Modernist novel written by Jorge Amado. Amado wrote the novel in response to his first arrest for "being a communist". The novel follows the lives of poor sailors around Bahia, and their relationship with the Afro-Brazilian religion Candombl, especially the sea goddess Iemanj. The novel's style and themes include many traits that characterize Amado's later work.
Development and style
'Sea of Death' was written in 1936, the year that Jorge Amado was jailed for the first time, at the age of twenty-four, on charges of being a communist. He was arrested in Rio de Janeiro and spent two months in prison. On his release, he was invited by a British publisher, Jos Olympio, to produce a new novel. 'Sea of Death' was begun in Salvador, Bahia, and completed in Rio de Janeiro. The novel won the Graa Aranha award from the Brazilian Academy of Letters in the same year.
'Sea of Death' was Jorge Amados fifth novel and the fifth of six novels he called his "Bahian Novels". He described 'Sea of Death' as a "new vision of the life of the sailors of small sailing vessels on the waterfront of the state capital and the bay". It is one of his most poetically charged books. His translator, Gregory Rabassa, describes it as "sentimental, 'touching' and poetic". According to the critic Fbio Lucas, the novels poetic prose was to become a hallmark of the authors work.
Plot
'Sea of Death' tells stories of the dockside of Salvador, Bahia. The lives of the sailors of sloops in the bay from which Bahia gets its name are centred on the mythology surrounding the goddess Iemanj, the "Queen of the Ocean" or the "Mother of Waters", are central to this novel, which portrays their daily struggle for survival. The novel features a variety of characters whose lives unfold around the story of two lovers, Guma and Lvia. They include the black Rufino and his mulatto lover Esmeralda; Francisco, Gumas uncle, who mends nets; and the foul-mouthed Rosa Palmeiro.
References
Category:1936 novels
Category:Novels by Jorge Amado
Category:Brazilian novels
Category:Portuguese-language novels
Category:Novels set in Bahia
Category:Modernist novels
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