Orphans of Eldorado, by Milton Hatoum Reviewed by Paul Engles on February 12, 2010 www.Bookgeeks.co.uk A tiny Roman numeral at the top of the spine announces (in a whisper) that Orphans of Eldorado is the thirteenth instalment of Canongate’s critically acclaimed Myths series. However, it seems that Canongate have relaxed their branding, as Hatoum’s slim novel is issued as a trade paperback, and a colourful one at that. The decision to publish in paperback has prompted a flurry of angry comments on the novel’s official page on the Myths website, but binding aside, Orphans of Eldorado doesn’t disappoint. The myth that underpins the story concerns Amazonian tales of an enchanted underwater utopian city. Hatoum suggests in his afterword that these stories, which involve people being seduced by dolphins or anacondas and taken down to the riverbed to live an enchanted life, may have been the inspiration for the conquistador’s search for the chimerical golden city of Eldorado. Supernatural rumours and whispers abound in Hatoum’s depiction of early twentieth century Brazil: the novel opens with two vignettes about a man who is strangled by his own enormous penis and a woman who copulates with a male tapir. However, the narrative is [...]

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Tale of a certain orient is a story of a return: to Manaus, in the heart of the Amazon; to a large and unruly family of Lebanese emigrants; to the past. Emilie, the matriarch, is on her deathbed. Returning to her childhood home to say goodbye, her granddaughter becomes enceloped in memories, as family and friends gather round to tell their own tales, one by one. We hear of how Uncle Hanna first left lebanon for Brazil early in the twentieth century; of Soraya Ângela, the illegitimate deaf-mute child whose short life was blighted by fear and prejudice;of Uncle Emir and his solitary walk that ended at the bottom of a river; of Hakim’s wranglings with the Arabic language; of the two unnameable, fiery-tongued brothers; of the German photographer and constant friend Dorner, roaming Manaus with his Hasselblad; and at the centre of it all lies Emilie: loving, interfering, luminous. Flowing like the Amazon thorugh East and West, city and jungle,life and death, Tale of a Certain Orient has all the magnetism and lush beauty of its Brazilian setting. Winner of the Jabuti Prize (the Brazilian equivalent of the Booker) this classic novel has already been published in seven countries. [...]

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Set in the Brazilian port of Manaus, The Brothers is the gripping story of identical twins, Yacub and Omar, whose mutual jealousy is offset only by the fierce love for their mother. Omar has always been the object of Zana’s Jocasta-like passion, but his indolence and self-indulgence lead him to a life of crime that his mother refuses to acknowledge. Yacub is the seemingly more trustworthy of the two, and soon leaves for São Paulo anda a succesful career as an engineer, but only after has exacted a subtle revenge on his brother. Yet in spite of his professed desire to have nothing more to do with his family, he is too firmly entangled in their pernicious relationships – a web complicated by his beautiful sister, Rânia – not to be drawn back to Manaus. Vivid, exotic, and lushly atmospheric, The Brothers is a haunting story of a family desintegration and cultural transformation by one of Brazil’s most acclaimed contemporary novelists. translated by John Geldson Praise for The Brothers: “The sotry is universal, though sensously anchored in Manaus… gripping in both its particular twists and its tragic inevitability… it is a human story told in a world made real by [...]

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Ashes of the Amazon is the sotry of a long rebellion and the struggle to understand it. The rebel is Mundo, the embittered offshoot of a family split down in the middle, whose artistic vocation clashes with his fatheer’s dynastic plans; the attempt to understand him falls to Lavo, a hardworking orphan who betters himself – if that’s the word – under the influence of Mundo’s father, a rich businessman with friend in the military. The symbolic heart of the novel lies in Vila Amazônia, a palatial villa at the centre of a jute plantation and Mundo’s worst nightmare. in his lifelong struggle to escape his father’s dynastic ambitions, Mundo distances himself as much as possible from this dead centre of the family’s wealth, escaping to Rio de janeiro and the the effervescent worlds of Berlin and London in the 1970s. In Ashes of the Amazon, Hatoum has expanded and deepened his fictional world, taking to heart Flaubert’s injunction to write ‘the moral history of his generation’. This beautiful, mature, and involving novel is the extraordinary result. Winner of Brazil’s three premier prizes: The Book of the Year, The Jabuti Prize for Best Novel, Portugal Telecom Prize. translated by John [...]

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Milton Hatoum is one of Brazil’s greatest writers, with several landmark novels translated into English, including Tale of a Certain Orient and Ashes of the Amazon. His most recent work in translation is Orphans of Eldorado, a re-telling of one of the Amazon’s greatest legends. Milton Hatoum discusses his writing life and takes questions from the audience.

Milton Hatoum – Saturday 17 July 2010, 1:00 pm

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