Jorge Amado - Recommended Reading for Brazil Travelers

A trip to Brazil should be well prepared. Depending on the region, season, and type of vacation, different things belong in the suitcase or rucksack. In any case, demanding travel reading should be on the packing list. A good book is an exciting alternative to the in-flight entertainment system, which not only helps to bridge the flight times but also possible waiting times at the airport. Chronic lack of space in the luggage is nowadays no longer an excuse to do without reading material on vacation. Modern e-readers are now so compact and lightweight that they should fit into any bag, no matter how full it is. Then you don't have to limit yourself to just a few books, because hundreds of books can be stored on the devices. Alternatively, it is also a good idea to download some audiobooks to your smartphone before you travel.

Now all that remains is to find the right reading. It is especially nice when you decide on a book during your vacation that deals with your travel destination. Because then you can get in the mood for the forthcoming journey during the outward flight and receive interesting background information about the country and its people. The travel experience will become certainly clearly more intensive thereby. At this point, we would like to introduce you to one of Brazil's most famous authors - an absolute reading tip for your trip to Brazil:

Jorge Amado (Jorge Leal Amado de Faria) has been awarded many international prizes for his books and has also often been the subject of discussion for the Nobel Prize for Literature. He has had several international bestsellers, some of which have been translated into up to fifty different languages. Based on his works, several successful films, series, and musicals have been produced in Brazil. Former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso once called him "a creator who had the courage to paint Brazil in its true colors".

Amado was born in 1912 in the Brazilian state of Bahia as the son of a cocoa plantation owner. As a twelve-year-old boy, he worked on his family's cocoa plantations and published his first short stories along the way. At the age of 15, he was already working as a journalist and writer for smaller regional newspapers.

What was also special about Amado was that he always stood up for the interests of the poorer population. His political convictions also meant that he had to spend some time in prison and later finally fled into exile for several years. By the way, he also worked on the current constitution of Brazil.
At this point a small selection of well-known works by Jorge Amado, which are also available in English:

Jorge Amado, who died in Salvador da Bahia in 2001, was a very close person to his homeland. This can be seen, for example, in the fact that the locations in his books are almost exclusively in northeastern Brazil. Particularly often his stories take place in the Brazilian state of Bahia, where Amado was born and grew up.

Especially his book "The violent land" (original title: Terras do sem-fim) makes a strong reference to the region around his home town Ilheus. One can hardly blame him for his love of his homeland. Because there, on the so-called Cocoa Coast, where Jorge Amado once worked on his family's fazenda, the Atlantic Rainforest meets some of the country's most beautiful beaches.

Those who would like to experience for themselves what it is like on a cocoa farm on the cocoa coast have the opportunity to do so at the Fazenda Almada. There, in close proximity to the cocoa plantations of Armado, you can not only learn how the harvest of high-quality organic cocoa is done and how handmade chocolate is produced. The farm is surrounded by the Mata Atlantica, a tropical rainforest that even dwarfs the biodiversity of the Amazon. Furthermore, the grounds of the Fazenda are directly adjacent to the eponymous Rio Almada, where boat trips can be made. And the nearby mountain range offers some wonderful hiking trails, some of which can even be explored by horse. The highlight, however, is certainly the extremely rare Goldhead Lion Monkeys, which have found a home on the farm. The monkeys live there in complete freedom on former farmland, which the German-Brazilian owner couple has placed under nature protection.

If you spend a part of your Brazilian vacation on the colonial-style fazenda, which has been in existence since 1855, you will not only contribute to the preservation of this historically significant place but also actively promote the survival of the regional nature. A quote from Jorge Amado fits this description: "That's Bahia. This is its flair, linked to the past, looking to the future".

Source: spiegel.de; tagesspiegel.de; fgv.br; jorgeamado.org.br