Bahia’s most famous son gets new image

Jorge Amado has been re-branded.

São Paulo publisher Companhia das Letras has released the first part of their series of new editions of all Jorge Amado’s books, with beautiful new book designs and afterwords by Milton Hatoum, Mia Couto and Ana Maria Machado, among others.

The book designs are gorgeous and the marketing campaign is impressive. The publisher’s aims are so far working wonders on me, and the project really has inspired me to re-read  Jorge Amado, having been put off by the style when I first read Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon in English.

With the nationwide hype surrounding this new publishing initiative, I have got back into Amado in the past few weeks, in both English and Portuguese, and hereby proclaim that his stories are funny, rhythmic, sexy, raw and addictive ….a little like Bahia.

In English, I have recently read The War of the Saints. This book contains a “bedroom scene” very similar in substance, if not in style, to a vital scene of Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach. I can’t give spoilers, so if you want to know what I am rattling on about, read both books.

And in Portuguese, I am now in the middle of the new edition of Mar Morto (the one with the red cover in the images above – the beautiful image on the cover depicts the traditional “saveiro” boats in Salvador), commissioned in 1936 by José Olympio to help Amado’s financial situation after his release from prison in Rio de Janeiro that year. So far the soundbite in my head  would be something along the lines of Amado’s art of storytelling being comparable to that of Herman Melville, but way more brash and much funnier.

As I have mentioned before in this blog, a great way to improve your Portuguese is to read, read, and read some more. Reading Jorge Amado is certainly a no-nonsense way to get to augment your Portuguese vocabulary and get into Bahia’s colourful past.  

So, to whet your appetite for all of the above, and to show you just how uncomplicated Amado’s language is, here’s the opening paragraph of Mar Morto:

A noite se antecipou. Os homens ainda não a esperavam quando ela desabou sobre a cidade em nuvens carregadas. Ainda não estavam acesas as luzes do cais, no Farol das Estrelas não brilhavam ainda as lâmpadas pobres que iluminavam os copos de cachaça, muitos saveiros ainda cortavam as águas do mar quando o vento trouxe a noite em nuvens pretas.

And don’t you just feel the sky darkening over your computer screen?

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