Book summary

In Updike's erotically charged, magic-realist love story, poor little rich girl Isabel, who is white, flees Rio with a young black man named Tristo whom she meets on the beach, with her father in pursuit. Through a series of trials, the lovers finally escape him, and Updike follows the pair over the years as they struggle to stay together, resorting at times to prostitution, the jungle, and a shaman who turns Isabel black and Tristo white--at which point he is murdered by a gang of street youths like the one he came from. Updike has said that he intended BRAZIL to be "Tristan and Isolde in the form of Brazilian characters."

Media reviews

"Whatever one feels about Mr. Updike's world view, it is hard to resist the depth of his mind and the seduction of his prose. Once again, in 'Brazil', that prose is measured, layered, insightful, smooth, as addictive a verbal drug as exists on the modern market."