Macunaima

The eponymous hero and his brothers embark on an oversexed tropical Homeric epic that builds into nothing less than an origin myth of Brazil.

As in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando (also published in the same year, 1928), the trio’s adventures collapse time and space and are notably relaxed about gender identities. Nonchalantly metamorphosing races and species and the animate and inanimate, Macunaíma anticipates much later works of magical realism.

This vibrant new translation by Katrina Dodson captures both its modernist spirit and its authentic roots in the luxuriant rainforest.