Ribeiro, Joao Ubaldo

Boston. 1977. January 1978. Houghton Mifflin. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0395257050. Foreword by Jorge Amado. 146 pages. hardcover. keywords: Literature Translated Brazil Latin America . FROM THE PUBLISHER - In this epic saga of the human spirit, set in the harsh backlands of Northeastern Brazil, the reader inhabits the unusual mind of Sergeant Getulio, a hired gunman capable of terrible brutality and brilliant primitive philosophy, as he fulfills a mission. His boss's orders: to capture a political enemy and deliver him up for retribution. But as Getulio is returning with his captive, federal troops intercept him and attempt to rescue the prisoner. Getulio, unable or unwilling to understand that he has been betrayed by his own boss, resists them. The only morality he knows is to complete his mission. He is a classic hero, rigid in his integrity, suddenly brought into conflict with an incomprehensibly modern kind of evil. In the end he must choose between his manhood and his life. SERGEANT GETULIO is a taut, tightly crafted novel, vivid and raw and bloody, alternately funny and poignant, but always compelling. When it first appeared in 1971 it was immediately hailed as a masterpiece and won the highest literary honor Brazil offers: the Jabuti Prize for the best novel of the year. It has since been published in Portugal and (in translation) in France. ‘Ribeiro's Getâlio is a revelation. This murdering, betrayed thug on a vicious mission becomes before our very eyes a free man whom we must love and honor. How the reader and unlikely hero come to self-knowledge on his harrowing trip is an exhilarating mystery, a triumph we have forgotten to expect of literature.' - Jose Yglesias. inventory #3920 ISBN: 0395257050.