The Strange Nation of Rafael Mendes - Softcover

Scliar, Moacyr

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345348613 ISBN 13: 9780345348616

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1988

Synopsis

Judeus perseguidos, intrigas, a Inquisição, revoluções, amores, presságios, sonhos, o mito da Árvore de Ouro, que fascina e determina várias gerações. Do ventre da baleia, do qual o profeta Jonas é lançado, aos escândalos financeiros e à corrupção do poder no Brasil contemporâneo, sucedem-se admiráveis peripécias, por meio das quais Moacyr Scliar conta a tumultuada história dos cristãos-novos através dos tempos.

About this title

Language Notes

Text: English, Portugese (translation)

From Publishers Weekly

Rafael Mendes seems to have it alla condo in the most posh section of town, an exalted position in his Brazilian finance firm, a beautiful 18-year-old daughter, an attractive wife and a mistress. But the world is falling apart for the protagonist of this alternatingly arresting and inflated but always venturesome novel. Mendes's business stands in danger of collapse in the tottering economy of 1975; his freaky daughter has joined the cult of the New Essenes; his treacherous mistress has turned on him; and an elderly self-appointed genealogist delivers a blackmail threat: fork over a large sum of money or stand exposed as an ancestrally Jewish "New Christian"one whose forebears were converted by the persuasive powers of the Portuguese Inquisition. Scliar (The Centaur in the Garden) documents his case in a sprawling account of the fictional Mendes family that turns into a skewed, scattered history of the Jewsthe novel's reason for being. He traces the Mendes line of descent from the prophet Jonah to the 12th century philosopher Maimonides to 15th century Iberia, where Torquemada fashioned the dire fate of the Jews while another Mendes, a Jewish cartographer, set sail with Columbus. A fine examplar of contemporary Latin-American fiction, Scliar's strong voice and haunting vision enliven this provocative tale.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0345348613
• ISBN 13: 9780345348616
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback