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A Death in Brazil

A Book of Omissions

Picador, May 2005
ISBN: 978-0-312-42487-9, ISBN10: 0-312-42487-6,
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 352 pages, Includes two maps,
Trade Paperback, $18.00

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Categories and Subcategories

See All Categories History World: Latin America Latin American & Caribbean Studies Latin American & Caribbean Studies - All Titles

"Like everyone, I went to Brazil to get away . . ."

So begins Peter Robb's exhilarating encounter with one of the most beautiful and seductive places on earth. Combining travel, culture, and personal reminiscence, the author of Midnight in Sicily takes the reader on a wild ride through five hundred years of history that begins with the sexual intoxication of Portuguese settlers and ends wit the surprise election of the charismatic Lula, Brazil's first working-class president.

Delving into the country's baroque past, Robb examines the legacy of slavery—the world's longest-lives—and the richly multicultural but disturbed society that it left in its wake. Beginning with his own near murder in Rio at the hands of an intruder twenty years ago and continuing through the recent slaying of a former president's bagman who looted the nation of millions of dollars, danger is the author's constant companion. Yet it is Brazil's exuberant life, not death, that leaves a lasting impression and animates Peter Robb's dazzling prose.

Employing art, food, and the literature of the great nineteenth-century writer Machado de Assis, A Death in Brazil paints a multi-layered portrait of Brazil as a country of intoxicating and passionate extremes.

Praise

"Amber-lit anecdotes of being held up at knife point in Rio rest side-by-side with grim investigations into the country's ancient slave-owning past. The result is an intoxicating cocktail of a book—one that is equal parts danger and sex, mixed together with a splash of erudition."—John Freeman, Newsday

"A provocative and unsettling tour of Brazil's seamy side . . . Robb has plenty of affection for Brazil's people and national spirit, but his clear-eyed assessment of its problems makes this a powerful piece of reporting that blurs the boundaries between true crime, travel writing, and history."—Andrew Johnston, Time Out New York

"A Death in Brazil is not strictly about travel. It deals with Brazil's history, landscapes, society, culture, food, and the baroque flamboyance of its political life . . . Fascinating."—Richard Eder, The New York Times

"A seductive synthesis of history, gastronomy, literature, pop culture, and current events."—The New Yorker

"Sentence after sentence, page after page, with its eye for landscape, ear for character, delicious sensuousness, and bold investigation of political greed, corruption and revolution, A Death in Brazil is an astonishing feat of storytelling."—Peter Carey, author of My Life as a Fake and True History of the Kelly Gang

"Evocative . . . Mr. Robb is not one of those travelers who must see and do everything. Nor is he a journalist determined to bore down to factual bedrock. He is largely content to let Brazil happen to him, which is one of the book’s charms."—The Economist

"[Robb] has a sharp eye for both the beauty and the beast in Brazil."—Mac Margolis, Newsweek

"Robb's revelations of political nepotism, intrigue, and passion read like a horribly real soap opera. Recommended for all."—Library Journal

About the Author(s)

Peter Robb

Peter Robb has divided his time among Brazil, southern Italy, and Australia for the last quarter century. He is also the author of Midnight in Sicily and M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.