Isais, a young Amazon Indian who has been converted to Christianity, departs for Rome to attend a Catholic seminary. Haunted by his heritage, racked by doubts, he abjures his oath before he is ordained as a priest. Reverting to Ava, his indigenous name, he returns to his people--the Mairun--to become their chieftain.
Alma, a young white woman undergoing a profound crise d'identité searches for spiritual fulfillment as she aims to join a group of nuns who are to work as missionaries among Isais's people.
As the destinies of Ava and Alma converge, we are plunged into the endlessly fascinating everyday life of the Mairun, a highly ritualistic, rational world where clans--the House of the Jaguar and the House of the Falcon--are exactly complementary; where every being, every animal, every plant has a prescribed role, resulting in the union of man with the great All of the jungle.
A mystery unfolds: One day Alma, the young white woman, is discovered, curiously marked, dead on a beach having discharged stillborn twins.
As Maíra, the Sun, and Micura, the Moon--mythic gods of the Mirun--watch, petrified by impotence, we hear the piercing cry of a civilization in its death throes.
Not since João Guimarães Rosa's Grande Sertão: Veredas--a novel regarded by many as the masterpiece of twentieth century Latin American literature, and written nearly thirty years ago--has there been as compelling a work of fiction from Brazil as Maíra. Already a sensation in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and throughout Latin America, Maíra dramatizes with panache and absolute authority an explosive, perhaps hopeless situation: the irreconcilable conflict between the rich, complex culture of the Indians of the Amazon and Western modes of living, informed as these are by technology and capitalism.
Only Darcy Ribeiro--world-renowned Brazilian anthropologist, distinguished statesman and now man of letters--could have written this book. For years, and all over the place, he has denounced the scandal of the Brazilian "economic miracle," realized through the systematic extermination of whole tribes of the indigenous population of the Amazon region.
Translated from the Portuguese by E.A. Goodland and Thomas Colchie.
Editorial Review(s)
"One of the most delicious novels to have appeared in Brazil in modern times....its lyrical passages read like Song of Songs." --Jornal do Brasil
About the Author
Darcy Ribeiro (1922-1997) was a distinguished Brazilian anthropologist who specialized in the indigenous peoples of Brazil. He has also served in government as Minister of Education and personal advisor to President Goulart before the military coup of 1964, and he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Rio de Janeiro. Ribeiro is well-known for his second literary, international triumph, O Mulo (1981).