São Bernardo
Graciliano Ramos
New York Review Books
<b>A masterwork about backcountry life by one of Brazil's most celebrated novelists.</b><br>Paulo Hon&oacute;rio is a sometime field hand who has kicked and clawed and schemed his way to prosperity, becoming master of the decrepit estate S&atilde;o Bernardo, where once upon a time he toiled. He is ruthless in his exploitation of his fellow man, but when he makes a match with a fine young woman, he is surprised to discover that this latest acquisition, as he sees it, may be somewhat harder to handle. It is in Paulo Hon&oacute;rio's own rough-hewn voice that the great Brazilian writer Graciliano Ramos, often compared to William Faulkner, tells this gritty and dryly funny story of triumph and comeuppance, a tour de force of the writer's art that is beautifully captured in Padma Viswanathan's new translation.</br>