WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.560 welcome back to the deep dive today we are setting 00:00:02.560 --> 00:00:04.900 the coordinates for somewhere hot somewhere humid 00:00:04.900 --> 00:00:07.980 and uh somewhere incredibly complex we are going 00:00:07.980 --> 00:00:10.300 to brazil and not just the brazil of postcards 00:00:10.300 --> 00:00:12.960 we are going to the brazil of the soul right 00:00:12.960 --> 00:00:17.000 we're looking at a figure who is well he's a 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:21.339 paradox wrapped in a riddle seasoned with i don't 00:00:21.339 --> 00:00:24.730 know Cilantro and dende oil. That's a very Bahian 00:00:24.730 --> 00:00:26.789 way to put it. We're talking about a man who 00:00:26.789 --> 00:00:29.710 started his career documenting the most brutal, 00:00:29.809 --> 00:00:33.429 violent, muddy realities of cocoa plantations. 00:00:33.789 --> 00:00:36.770 And somehow he ended up being the guy who defined 00:00:36.770 --> 00:00:41.009 the smiling celebration of an entire nation. 00:00:41.310 --> 00:00:43.710 It's a massive ideological and literary journey. 00:00:44.060 --> 00:00:46.380 We are talking about Jorge Amado. And to simply 00:00:46.380 --> 00:00:48.880 call him a writer feels like a drastic undersell. 00:00:48.979 --> 00:00:51.939 Oh, completely. He's the giant of Brazilian modernism. 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:53.939 A giant. I was looking at the stats before we 00:00:53.939 --> 00:00:55.799 started recording and they are just staggering. 00:00:55.799 --> 00:00:57.740 They really are. His work has been translated 00:00:57.740 --> 00:01:00.159 into what, 49 languages? 49 languages, yeah. 00:01:00.259 --> 00:01:02.759 He's published in 55 countries. It's unbelievable. 00:01:03.200 --> 00:01:06.140 If you, listening right now, have a mental image 00:01:06.140 --> 00:01:10.219 of Brazil, that specific smell of cloves, The 00:01:10.219 --> 00:01:12.900 taste of cinnamon, the heat of Bahia, the complex, 00:01:12.980 --> 00:01:15.939 beautiful mix of cultures. There is a very, very 00:01:15.939 --> 00:01:17.959 good chance that image was planted in your head 00:01:17.959 --> 00:01:21.439 by Jorge Amado. Precisely. He is the lens through 00:01:21.439 --> 00:01:23.319 which much of the world learned to see Brazil. 00:01:24.200 --> 00:01:26.659 But what makes this deep dive so fascinating 00:01:26.659 --> 00:01:30.159 to me isn't just his success. No. It's the tension. 00:01:30.939 --> 00:01:33.659 At the absolute center of his life. Because today, 00:01:33.900 --> 00:01:36.799 you know, we think of Amato as this grandfatherly 00:01:36.799 --> 00:01:38.939 storyteller. Yeah, the guy who wrote these colorful, 00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:41.780 sensuous books like Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon, 00:01:41.959 --> 00:01:44.280 the cozy national treasure. Exactly. The cozy 00:01:44.280 --> 00:01:46.480 national treasure. But if you dig into the sources, 00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:49.579 if you go back to the beginning, you find a man 00:01:49.579 --> 00:01:52.319 who was a fierce communist militant. A militant 00:01:52.319 --> 00:01:54.780 who was exiled. A man whose books were publicly 00:01:54.780 --> 00:01:57.340 burned in a city square. By the military police, 00:01:57.400 --> 00:02:00.040 no less. Right. And yet this same man ends up 00:02:00.040 --> 00:02:02.099 winning the French Legion of Honor. He's getting 00:02:02.099 --> 00:02:04.439 multiple Nobel Prize nominations. And he becomes 00:02:04.439 --> 00:02:07.859 this beloved icon who collects toy frogs. The 00:02:07.859 --> 00:02:10.139 frogs. We have to talk about the frogs later. 00:02:10.319 --> 00:02:12.659 We absolutely have to. So that's our mission 00:02:12.659 --> 00:02:15.090 today. We want to figure out how he pulled off 00:02:15.090 --> 00:02:17.650 this magic trick. Yeah. How do you go from being 00:02:17.650 --> 00:02:20.650 a dangerous enemy of the state to being the smiling 00:02:20.650 --> 00:02:24.229 voice of the country? How do you reconcile the 00:02:24.229 --> 00:02:28.490 violent lands with the celebration? It is the 00:02:28.490 --> 00:02:31.030 central question of his legacy. Yeah. And to 00:02:31.030 --> 00:02:33.449 understand it, we can't start with fame. We can't 00:02:33.449 --> 00:02:35.530 start with Gabriela. We have to start with the 00:02:35.530 --> 00:02:37.009 mud. You've got to go back. We have to go to 00:02:37.009 --> 00:02:38.710 the source of the violence. Okay, let's do it. 00:02:38.729 --> 00:02:41.710 Let's unpack his roots. So Jorge Amado was born 00:02:41.710 --> 00:02:44.990 on August 10th, 1912. The location is a farm 00:02:44.990 --> 00:02:47.469 in a place called Ferradas near the city of Itabuna 00:02:47.469 --> 00:02:50.330 in the state of Bahia. So paint the picture for 00:02:50.330 --> 00:02:53.349 us. When we say Bahia in 1912, what are we looking 00:02:53.349 --> 00:02:56.270 at? Well, today we think of Bahia as, you know, 00:02:56.289 --> 00:02:58.569 the vibrant center of Afro -Brazilian culture, 00:02:58.849 --> 00:03:02.830 music, tourism. But the specific region where 00:03:02.830 --> 00:03:05.930 Amado was born, the cocoa growing region, was 00:03:05.930 --> 00:03:09.400 something else entirely. It was the Wild West. 00:03:09.539 --> 00:03:11.960 Literally, like gunslingers and everything. Culturally 00:03:11.960 --> 00:03:15.020 and violently, yes. This is the era of the violent 00:03:15.020 --> 00:03:17.580 land, which, of course, later became the title 00:03:17.580 --> 00:03:20.020 of one of his most famous books. It was a rush 00:03:20.020 --> 00:03:22.840 economy. Oh. Think of the gold rush, but instead 00:03:22.840 --> 00:03:26.099 of gold, it's cocoa. And instead of the dry California 00:03:26.099 --> 00:03:29.520 hills, it's the dense, sweltering Atlantic rainforest. 00:03:29.939 --> 00:03:32.659 It's muddy. It's hot. It's brutal. And where 00:03:32.659 --> 00:03:34.680 there's a resource rush, there are usually guns. 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:38.060 Exactly. The region was controlled by Coronese 00:03:38.060 --> 00:03:40.939 colonels. Now, don't let the title fool you. 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:43.120 These weren't necessarily military men. Right. 00:03:43.199 --> 00:03:46.120 It's more like a land baron or a warlord. Precisely. 00:03:46.439 --> 00:03:49.539 They were powerful, wealthy landowners who commanded 00:03:49.539 --> 00:03:52.969 private militias. They were the law. They control 00:03:52.969 --> 00:03:55.250 the politics, the police, and all the land through 00:03:55.250 --> 00:03:58.810 just, through brute force. So Amado is born into 00:03:58.810 --> 00:04:00.870 this environment, but he's not born a peasant, 00:04:00.930 --> 00:04:03.590 right? His father, João Amado de Faria, was a 00:04:03.590 --> 00:04:05.610 landowner himself. Correct. And that's a crucial 00:04:05.610 --> 00:04:07.729 detail. Jorge was born on the side of power. 00:04:08.050 --> 00:04:10.250 He was the son of a fazendeiro, a farm owner, 00:04:10.349 --> 00:04:13.330 a coronel in a sense. But, and this is the key 00:04:13.330 --> 00:04:15.389 to his entire psychology, he wasn't shielded 00:04:15.389 --> 00:04:18.189 from the horror of it. He saw it firsthand. He 00:04:18.189 --> 00:04:21.060 saw it. The sources are very specific here. They 00:04:21.060 --> 00:04:24.259 mention that even as a child, he witnessed misery 00:04:24.259 --> 00:04:27.399 and people living in almost enslaved conditions. 00:04:27.540 --> 00:04:30.259 Almost enslaved. That phrase is so heavy. You 00:04:30.259 --> 00:04:32.860 have to remember slavery in Brazil was only abolished 00:04:32.860 --> 00:04:35.540 in 1888. Just 24 years before he was born. I 00:04:35.540 --> 00:04:38.160 mean, that's a single generation. The structures 00:04:38.160 --> 00:04:40.439 of slavery, the economic dependence, the brutality, 00:04:40.779 --> 00:04:43.720 the absolute lack of rights were still fully 00:04:43.720 --> 00:04:46.579 intact on these plantations. It was serfdom, 00:04:46.620 --> 00:04:49.199 basically. So he's a little boy looking out the 00:04:49.199 --> 00:04:52.000 window of the big house and he's seeing the workers 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:54.720 in the mud. He's seeing the violence used to 00:04:54.720 --> 00:04:57.360 maintain his own family's lifestyle. Can you 00:04:57.360 --> 00:05:00.160 imagine what that does to a child's mind? It 00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:02.860 creates a fissure in his identity. You often 00:05:02.860 --> 00:05:05.360 hear about writers who discover social justice 00:05:05.360 --> 00:05:08.319 in like a university classroom, right? Yeah, 00:05:08.319 --> 00:05:09.980 they read a book and get angry. Right, they read 00:05:09.980 --> 00:05:12.860 a theory. For Amato, it wasn't theoretical. It 00:05:12.860 --> 00:05:14.519 was visceral. It was right there in the dirt. 00:05:14.579 --> 00:05:16.500 It was the air he breathed. He didn't need to 00:05:16.500 --> 00:05:18.879 read Marx to know that the system was fundamentally 00:05:18.879 --> 00:05:21.680 unfair. He just had to look outside. Precisely. 00:05:22.139 --> 00:05:25.379 Those childhood observations planted the seeds. 00:05:25.579 --> 00:05:28.759 You cannot understand his later political militancy, 00:05:28.819 --> 00:05:31.720 his joining the Communist Party, without understanding 00:05:31.720 --> 00:05:35.060 that he saw the human cost of that cocoa wealth 00:05:35.060 --> 00:05:37.560 from day one. It's the foundation. It formed 00:05:37.560 --> 00:05:40.189 the bedrock of the social realism. that defined 00:05:40.189 --> 00:05:43.350 his entire early career. He wasn't making up 00:05:43.350 --> 00:05:45.209 stories about the poor. He was reporting on what 00:05:45.209 --> 00:05:47.550 he saw. Now, he didn't stay on that farm forever. 00:05:47.730 --> 00:05:50.449 And the reason for the family's move is, well. 00:05:50.839 --> 00:05:53.500 It's intense. It feels almost biblical. A plague. 00:05:53.579 --> 00:05:56.319 A smallpox epidemic. Yes. When he was just one 00:05:56.319 --> 00:05:59.800 year old, a massive smallpox epidemic swept through 00:05:59.800 --> 00:06:02.500 the region. It was devastating. The family was 00:06:02.500 --> 00:06:04.720 forced to flee the farm and move to the coastal 00:06:04.720 --> 00:06:07.500 city of Ilgeas to escape it. And Ilgeas becomes 00:06:07.500 --> 00:06:09.639 his home base, right, for the rest of his life. 00:06:09.660 --> 00:06:11.540 He considers himself a citizen of that city. 00:06:11.620 --> 00:06:13.860 He does. Ilgeas is central to his identity and, 00:06:13.899 --> 00:06:16.120 of course, to many of his novels, like Gabriela. 00:06:16.259 --> 00:06:18.980 Yeah. but he didn't stay there for his education. 00:06:19.199 --> 00:06:21.459 No, he was sent to the big city, Salvador, the 00:06:21.459 --> 00:06:23.959 capital of Bahia. And this is where we start 00:06:23.959 --> 00:06:25.699 to see that this wasn't a normal kid. I mean, 00:06:25.720 --> 00:06:27.980 looking at the timeline, he seems incredibly 00:06:27.980 --> 00:06:30.319 precocious. Precocious is putting it mildly. 00:06:30.379 --> 00:06:32.560 By the time he's attending high school in Salvador, 00:06:32.740 --> 00:06:36.120 he's what, 14? 14 years old. At 14, I was trying 00:06:36.120 --> 00:06:38.939 to figure out how to... you know, ride a bike 00:06:38.939 --> 00:06:41.959 without falling over. Exactly. He was already 00:06:41.959 --> 00:06:45.259 deeply embedded in the literary scene. He was 00:06:45.259 --> 00:06:47.500 helping found something called the Rebels Academy. 00:06:47.920 --> 00:06:50.819 The Rebels Academy. It's such a perfect romantic 00:06:50.819 --> 00:06:53.819 name for a group of young modernists, isn't it? 00:06:53.899 --> 00:06:55.980 It really is. It shows that he was already looking 00:06:55.980 --> 00:06:58.519 to shake things up. He wasn't interested in the 00:06:58.519 --> 00:07:01.560 status quo or the dusty old academics. He wanted 00:07:01.560 --> 00:07:03.560 to create a literature that reflected the Brazil 00:07:03.560 --> 00:07:07.199 he knew, the messy, real, mixed -race Brazil. 00:07:07.680 --> 00:07:09.420 And he didn't wait around for permission to start 00:07:09.420 --> 00:07:11.759 publishing. No. He published his first novel, 00:07:11.860 --> 00:07:14.639 The Country of Carnival, in 1931. He was only 00:07:14.639 --> 00:07:18.100 18 years old. 18. That is just... Okay. It's 00:07:18.100 --> 00:07:22.819 wild. And just two years later, in 1933, he publishes 00:07:22.819 --> 00:07:26.319 Kecko Coco. That second novel really increased 00:07:26.319 --> 00:07:28.339 his popularity because it went right back to 00:07:28.339 --> 00:07:31.360 those roots we talked about. It was a raw, unflinching 00:07:31.360 --> 00:07:33.259 look at the lives of the plantation workers. 00:07:33.480 --> 00:07:35.360 And his personal life was moving just as fast. 00:07:35.639 --> 00:07:38.709 The sources say he married his first wife. Matilda 00:07:38.709 --> 00:07:41.329 Garcia Rosa, and had his first daughter, Lila, 00:07:41.470 --> 00:07:43.949 that same year. So by the time he's 21, he's 00:07:43.949 --> 00:07:46.209 a best -selling author, a husband, a father, 00:07:46.329 --> 00:07:49.089 and a literary rebel. It's a lifetime of experience 00:07:49.089 --> 00:07:52.790 packed into just a few years. But there was technically 00:07:52.790 --> 00:07:55.569 a plan B, right? He was in Rio de Janeiro to 00:07:55.569 --> 00:07:58.310 study something a bit more traditional. Right, 00:07:58.370 --> 00:08:00.410 the classic parental expectation, law school. 00:08:00.629 --> 00:08:02.329 Of course. He attended the Federal University 00:08:02.329 --> 00:08:05.850 of Rio de Janeiro Faculty of Law, but... And 00:08:05.850 --> 00:08:08.230 that's a classic Amado detail. He never actually 00:08:08.230 --> 00:08:10.490 became a practicing lawyer. The law degree was 00:08:10.490 --> 00:08:13.170 just a backdrop, a cover. It was a prop, a good 00:08:13.170 --> 00:08:15.170 excuse. It got him to Rio, which was the political 00:08:15.170 --> 00:08:18.149 and cultural capital of Brazil at the time. But 00:08:18.149 --> 00:08:20.850 his real job, his true calling, was activism 00:08:20.850 --> 00:08:23.220 and writing. And this is where we get into the 00:08:23.220 --> 00:08:25.600 militant writer phase of his life, because you 00:08:25.600 --> 00:08:28.300 have to remember the political context of Brazil 00:08:28.300 --> 00:08:31.300 in the 1930s. It's everything. You can't separate 00:08:31.300 --> 00:08:33.720 his work from the politics of the era. This is 00:08:33.720 --> 00:08:36.879 the era of Getúlio Vargas. Correct. The Vargas 00:08:36.879 --> 00:08:39.820 regime. And let's just say Vargas was a complex 00:08:39.820 --> 00:08:43.080 figure, a populist dictator. A nationalist. Very 00:08:43.080 --> 00:08:46.000 much so. And he had absolutely no patience for 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:49.259 leftist agitators. Amato's activities, his writing, 00:08:49.340 --> 00:08:51.600 his associations, they put him directly in the 00:08:51.600 --> 00:08:53.779 crosshairs of the dictatorship. And when we say 00:08:53.779 --> 00:08:55.700 crosshairs, we aren't speaking metaphorically. 00:08:55.799 --> 00:08:58.740 He was arrested for the first time in 1935. He 00:08:58.740 --> 00:09:01.559 was for his political activities. But then comes 00:09:01.559 --> 00:09:06.100 1937. This is a moment that I think defines a 00:09:06.100 --> 00:09:08.240 generation of writers under authoritarianism. 00:09:08.490 --> 00:09:10.330 It's the moment of the book burning. I always 00:09:10.330 --> 00:09:12.389 stop cold when I read about book burnings. It 00:09:12.389 --> 00:09:14.190 feels so archaic, like something from the Middle 00:09:14.190 --> 00:09:17.090 Ages. But this was the 20th century. Imagine 00:09:17.090 --> 00:09:20.350 being 25 years old. You've poured your soul into 00:09:20.350 --> 00:09:22.389 these novels about the poor, about the struggles 00:09:22.389 --> 00:09:24.730 of your region. And the government piles them 00:09:24.730 --> 00:09:26.830 up in a public square in Salvador, your city, 00:09:26.909 --> 00:09:30.750 and sets them on fire. 808 copies of his books 00:09:30.750 --> 00:09:33.789 were burned by the military police. It's an act 00:09:33.789 --> 00:09:36.710 of symbolic violence. It's an attempt to erase 00:09:36.710 --> 00:09:40.309 the ideas. But as history shows us time and time 00:09:40.309 --> 00:09:43.129 again, book burnings often have the opposite 00:09:43.129 --> 00:09:46.429 effect. They backfire. Massively. They validate 00:09:46.429 --> 00:09:48.549 the author. How so? Well, they send a message. 00:09:48.649 --> 00:09:51.070 They say, this person is dangerous. This person 00:09:51.070 --> 00:09:53.289 has power. We're afraid of what this person is 00:09:53.289 --> 00:09:56.450 writing. By burning the books, the Vargas regime 00:09:56.450 --> 00:09:58.690 was admitting that Jorge Amado was a threat. 00:09:58.889 --> 00:10:01.289 It's the ultimate bad review, but also the ultimate 00:10:01.289 --> 00:10:04.149 compliment. In a dark way, yes. His works were 00:10:04.149 --> 00:10:05.870 also banned in Portugal, which was under the 00:10:05.870 --> 00:10:08.570 Salazar dictatorship. But interestingly, while 00:10:08.570 --> 00:10:11.110 Brazil was burning his books, Europe was starting 00:10:11.110 --> 00:10:13.309 to pay attention. Right. He published a book 00:10:13.309 --> 00:10:16.389 called Jubyaba, and it got great reviews in France. 00:10:16.429 --> 00:10:18.730 I read that even Albert Camus, the Nobel Prize 00:10:18.730 --> 00:10:21.230 winner, reviewed it enthusiastically. So you 00:10:21.230 --> 00:10:25.059 have this incredible dichotomy. At home, he is 00:10:25.059 --> 00:10:28.320 a criminal, a subversive element whose books 00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:32.320 are literally fuel for a bonfire. Abroad, he 00:10:32.320 --> 00:10:35.440 is being hailed as a significant new voice in 00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:37.539 world literature. And he wasn't just a writer 00:10:37.539 --> 00:10:39.779 with some leftist sympathies. He was all in. 00:10:39.840 --> 00:10:41.980 He was a card -carrying member of the Brazilian 00:10:41.980 --> 00:10:45.220 Communist Party, the PCB, from 1932. He was a 00:10:45.220 --> 00:10:47.679 militant. There's no other word for it. In the 00:10:47.679 --> 00:10:50.039 early 40s, he even edited a literary supplement 00:10:50.039 --> 00:10:52.740 for a political newspaper. But the pressure from 00:10:52.740 --> 00:10:54.620 the government just became too much. So he had 00:10:54.620 --> 00:10:57.759 to get out. From 1941 to 1942, he was forced 00:10:57.759 --> 00:11:00.519 into exile. He had to go to Argentina and Uruguay 00:11:00.519 --> 00:11:03.019 to stay safe. It's the classic James Bond writer, 00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:05.059 life on the run, crossing borders, living out 00:11:05.059 --> 00:11:07.779 of suitcases. But he comes back. And here's the 00:11:07.779 --> 00:11:09.500 part that just blew my mind when I was reading 00:11:09.500 --> 00:11:11.539 up on this. What's that? He doesn't just come 00:11:11.539 --> 00:11:13.639 back to write. He comes back to run for office. 00:11:13.779 --> 00:11:17.019 And he wins. He wins. In 1945, there was a brief 00:11:17.019 --> 00:11:19.860 opening, a democratic window, after the fall 00:11:19.860 --> 00:11:23.620 of Vargas' Estado Novo. Amato ran for the National 00:11:23.620 --> 00:11:25.899 Constituent Assembly as a representative of the 00:11:25.899 --> 00:11:28.500 Communist Party. As a communist. As an open communist. 00:11:28.820 --> 00:11:32.019 And get this. He received more votes than any 00:11:32.019 --> 00:11:33.840 other candidate in the state of Sao Paulo. That 00:11:33.840 --> 00:11:36.600 is staggering. A communist writer getting the 00:11:36.600 --> 00:11:39.559 most votes in the country's industrial powerhouse. 00:11:40.100 --> 00:11:42.519 It really shows that despite the censorship, 00:11:42.659 --> 00:11:44.799 or maybe because of it, the people loved him. 00:11:45.019 --> 00:11:47.580 They saw him as their voice. Yeah. And his time 00:11:47.580 --> 00:11:50.039 in office wasn't just symbolic. He actually left 00:11:50.039 --> 00:11:53.299 a legislative legacy. He was the author of a 00:11:53.299 --> 00:11:55.500 law that is still in effect today. What was it? 00:11:55.600 --> 00:11:57.720 He signed a law granting freedom of religious 00:11:57.720 --> 00:12:00.759 faith. OK, let's pause on that. You have a communist 00:12:00.759 --> 00:12:03.840 and strictly speaking, communists are atheists. 00:12:04.340 --> 00:12:07.139 Religion is the opium of the masses, right? That's 00:12:07.139 --> 00:12:09.919 the classic line. So why is a communist championing 00:12:09.919 --> 00:12:11.860 a law for religious freedom? It seems like a 00:12:11.860 --> 00:12:14.159 total contradiction. It is a beautiful contradiction, 00:12:14.340 --> 00:12:17.200 isn't it? But if you look closer. It makes perfect 00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:20.259 sense for Amado. It foreshadows his entire later 00:12:20.259 --> 00:12:23.379 career and his deep fascination with Brazilian 00:12:23.379 --> 00:12:25.620 culture. Because Brazilian culture is religious 00:12:25.620 --> 00:12:29.639 culture. Exactly. Specifically, the Afro -Brazilian 00:12:29.639 --> 00:12:32.980 religions like Candomblé and Umbanda. These religions 00:12:32.980 --> 00:12:35.100 were constantly persecuted by the police, by 00:12:35.100 --> 00:12:37.200 the Catholic establishment. They were seen as 00:12:37.200 --> 00:12:41.350 primitive or subversive. So he saw it as a freedom 00:12:41.350 --> 00:12:43.789 issue. He understood that for the people he wrote 00:12:43.789 --> 00:12:46.330 about, the working class of Bahia, their faith 00:12:46.330 --> 00:12:48.870 was essential. It was their culture, their identity, 00:12:48.990 --> 00:12:50.850 their resistance. You couldn't be a free person 00:12:50.850 --> 00:12:52.570 if you weren't free to practice your religion. 00:12:53.110 --> 00:12:55.370 So the atheist fought for the right to pray. 00:12:55.809 --> 00:12:58.889 It's a humanist stance over a dogmatic one. He 00:12:58.889 --> 00:13:01.110 put the people before the party line. I think 00:13:01.110 --> 00:13:04.789 so. But his political career was cut short. That 00:13:04.789 --> 00:13:07.210 democratic window slammed shut pretty quickly. 00:13:07.210 --> 00:13:09.330 Yeah, it did. The Cold War was heating up. In 00:13:09.330 --> 00:13:11.850 1947, the Communist Party was declared illegal 00:13:11.850 --> 00:13:14.070 again in Brazil. And its members were persecuted 00:13:14.070 --> 00:13:17.230 and arrested. Amado, as a high -profile former 00:13:17.230 --> 00:13:20.389 deputy, was a major target he had to run. Exile 00:13:20.389 --> 00:13:22.269 round two. And this one was longer. Went to France 00:13:22.269 --> 00:13:25.769 first, from 1948 to 1950. Imagine that scene. 00:13:25.950 --> 00:13:28.750 He's in Paris, rubbing shoulders with Sartre 00:13:28.750 --> 00:13:31.070 and Picasso. He's part of the post -war intellectual 00:13:31.070 --> 00:13:34.860 scene. But even that didn't last. No. The paranoia 00:13:34.860 --> 00:13:36.759 of the Cold War catches up with him there, too. 00:13:36.879 --> 00:13:39.159 He was expelled from France. He was too hot to 00:13:39.159 --> 00:13:41.440 handle even for the French. So he went behind 00:13:41.440 --> 00:13:44.620 the Iron Curtain. He eventually settled in Czechoslovakia 00:13:44.620 --> 00:13:47.539 with his second wife, the writer Zelia Gatai. 00:13:47.820 --> 00:13:51.120 They lived there from 1950 to 1952. And during 00:13:51.120 --> 00:13:53.379 this time, he's traveling the Soviet bloc. He 00:13:53.379 --> 00:13:55.919 goes to the Soviet Union. He even wins the Stalin 00:13:55.919 --> 00:13:59.080 Peace Prize in 1951. Which, looking back, is 00:13:59.080 --> 00:14:02.450 a heavy title to carry. A complicated award, 00:14:02.610 --> 00:14:04.850 to say the least. Very heavy, especially with 00:14:04.850 --> 00:14:07.309 what we know now about Stalin. Of course. And 00:14:07.309 --> 00:14:09.669 while he is accepting prizes in Moscow, the CIA 00:14:09.669 --> 00:14:13.370 is watching him. Documents released in 2016 confirmed 00:14:13.370 --> 00:14:15.769 that he was under surveillance during this period. 00:14:16.009 --> 00:14:18.590 They considered him a major cultural asset for 00:14:18.590 --> 00:14:20.190 the communists in Latin America. So let's just 00:14:20.190 --> 00:14:23.009 recap. We have Jorge Amado. International spy 00:14:23.009 --> 00:14:25.490 target, communist deputy exile, Stalin prize 00:14:25.490 --> 00:14:28.429 winner. It's a very serious, very intense, very 00:14:28.429 --> 00:14:31.529 political life. If he had died then in the early 00:14:31.529 --> 00:14:33.950 50s, he would be remembered as a political revolutionary 00:14:33.950 --> 00:14:36.929 who wrote protest novels. Absolutely. A footnote 00:14:36.929 --> 00:14:39.570 in the history of socialist realism. Yeah. But 00:14:39.570 --> 00:14:42.350 he didn't die. He returned to Brazil. And then. 00:14:43.050 --> 00:14:45.830 1954 happens. That's a great shift. When he comes 00:14:45.830 --> 00:14:49.029 back to Brazil in 54, everything changes. He 00:14:49.029 --> 00:14:51.549 makes a conscious decision to abandon active 00:14:51.549 --> 00:14:53.950 political life. He steps back. He leaves the 00:14:53.950 --> 00:14:58.070 Communist Party a year later, in 1955. He's had 00:14:58.070 --> 00:15:00.789 enough. Why? Was he disillusioned with what he 00:15:00.789 --> 00:15:02.629 saw in the Soviet Union after Stalin's death? 00:15:02.870 --> 00:15:05.549 Or did he just want a right? The sources suggest 00:15:05.549 --> 00:15:09.049 it was a mix of both. The revelations about Stalinism 00:15:09.049 --> 00:15:11.889 certainly played a part. Primarily, I think he 00:15:11.889 --> 00:15:14.710 wanted to dedicate himself solely to literature. 00:15:14.889 --> 00:15:17.090 He was tired of the dogma. He was tired of having 00:15:17.090 --> 00:15:19.049 to write books that fit a political checklist. 00:15:19.210 --> 00:15:21.330 He wanted freedom. He wanted artistic freedom. 00:15:21.429 --> 00:15:23.450 And the literature itself changed dramatically. 00:15:23.710 --> 00:15:26.309 He stopped writing strict social realism, books 00:15:26.309 --> 00:15:28.289 that are purely about the class struggle and 00:15:28.289 --> 00:15:30.789 the misery, and he pivoted. This is the Gabriella 00:15:30.789 --> 00:15:33.730 moment. Exactly. In 1958, he publishes Gabriella, 00:15:33.769 --> 00:15:36.490 Clove, and Cinnamon. And it is a revelation. 00:15:36.490 --> 00:15:38.809 It's a phenomenon. Jean -Paul Sartre, of all 00:15:38.809 --> 00:15:41.590 people, calls it the best example of a folk novel. 00:15:41.769 --> 00:15:43.990 It's a totally different vibe from his earlier 00:15:43.990 --> 00:15:46.669 work. Instead of just misery and exploitation, 00:15:47.049 --> 00:15:49.870 now we have humor. We have sensuality. We have 00:15:49.870 --> 00:15:53.230 food. We have these incredibly strong, unforgettable 00:15:53.230 --> 00:15:56.389 female characters. He moves toward what he called 00:15:56.389 --> 00:15:58.909 a smiling celebration of Baha 'ian traditions. 00:15:59.230 --> 00:16:01.909 He is still writing about the people. the poor, 00:16:02.029 --> 00:16:04.230 the mixed race population, but he is looking 00:16:04.230 --> 00:16:06.610 at their joy. Right. He's looking at their love 00:16:06.610 --> 00:16:09.090 lives, their cooking, their gossip, the resilience. 00:16:09.590 --> 00:16:13.129 This is the era that gives us Dona Flor and her 00:16:13.129 --> 00:16:16.029 two husbands and Teresa Batista, home from the 00:16:16.029 --> 00:16:18.889 wars. This is the Yamato the world falls in love 00:16:18.889 --> 00:16:21.210 with. But not everyone was happy about this celebration 00:16:21.210 --> 00:16:23.429 at first, and this story is honestly hilarious 00:16:23.429 --> 00:16:26.269 to me. It is iconic. Gabriela is set in El Geas, 00:16:26.409 --> 00:16:28.210 his hometown, the city he loved. But when the 00:16:28.210 --> 00:16:30.570 book came out, the locals were scandalized. Scandalized. 00:16:30.909 --> 00:16:32.970 Mortified. Was it the politics? Were they mad 00:16:32.970 --> 00:16:35.129 he wasn't a communist anymore? No, no, it was 00:16:35.129 --> 00:16:38.070 the sex. Specifically, his depiction of the sexual 00:16:38.070 --> 00:16:40.669 customs of the town. He wasn't hiding the affairs, 00:16:40.850 --> 00:16:42.490 the desires, the messiness of relationships. 00:16:42.809 --> 00:16:45.690 He painted the town exactly as he saw it, warts 00:16:45.690 --> 00:16:48.820 and all. And the local high society did not appreciate 00:16:48.820 --> 00:16:52.220 the portrait. Not at all. The Society of 1950s 00:16:52.220 --> 00:16:54.899 Brazil, especially in the provinces, was still 00:16:54.899 --> 00:16:57.059 very conservative, very Catholic on the surface. 00:16:57.360 --> 00:16:59.799 So the Cornets were okay with him writing about 00:16:59.799 --> 00:17:02.419 cocoa prices, but not about their mistresses. 00:17:02.600 --> 00:17:04.920 Precisely. The sources say he literally could 00:17:04.920 --> 00:17:07.299 not enter the city of Ilhias for years because 00:17:07.299 --> 00:17:10.430 of threats. That is wild. So he went from being 00:17:10.430 --> 00:17:12.690 persecuted by the national government for being 00:17:12.690 --> 00:17:15.750 a communist to being threatened by his own neighbors 00:17:15.750 --> 00:17:19.970 for being too spicy. Essentially, yes. Locals 00:17:19.970 --> 00:17:22.109 felt he had offended the morality of the city's 00:17:22.109 --> 00:17:24.529 women. It really highlights this incredible tension 00:17:24.529 --> 00:17:27.670 between a writer's job, which is to tell the 00:17:27.670 --> 00:17:29.970 truth about human behavior, and a community's 00:17:29.970 --> 00:17:32.789 desire to maintain a proper image. He was a political 00:17:32.789 --> 00:17:35.269 exile, and then he was a moral exile from his 00:17:35.269 --> 00:17:38.470 own home. But despite the local backlash, this 00:17:38.470 --> 00:17:40.930 new style is what launched him into the stratosphere 00:17:40.930 --> 00:17:43.970 globally. This is where he builds the Amado universe. 00:17:44.309 --> 00:17:46.509 And at the core of that universe is the idea 00:17:46.509 --> 00:17:49.670 of a Mestizo Brazil. Mestizo meaning mixed race. 00:17:50.140 --> 00:17:52.759 Yes. He wasn't just writing about white settlers 00:17:52.759 --> 00:17:55.559 or black workers in isolation. He was writing 00:17:55.559 --> 00:17:58.460 about the mixing, the blending of races, cultures, 00:17:58.680 --> 00:18:02.599 languages, and crucially, religions. His work 00:18:02.599 --> 00:18:05.880 is defined by religious syncretism. That brings 00:18:05.880 --> 00:18:07.720 us back to that contradiction we talked about 00:18:07.720 --> 00:18:10.440 earlier, the atheist communist who fights for 00:18:10.440 --> 00:18:13.099 religious freedom. Later in life, he received 00:18:13.099 --> 00:18:15.740 an honorary title in Candomblé, right? He did. 00:18:15.859 --> 00:18:19.119 He was given the honorary title of Oba de Xango. 00:18:19.670 --> 00:18:23.789 Jungo is the orixa or deity of justice. It shows 00:18:23.789 --> 00:18:25.549 the deep respect the religious community had 00:18:25.549 --> 00:18:27.769 for him. Because he took their beliefs seriously. 00:18:27.849 --> 00:18:30.130 He validated their culture and high literature. 00:18:30.599 --> 00:18:33.200 He treated the Orixás, the gods of Candomblé, 00:18:33.339 --> 00:18:36.079 with the same reverence, the same narrative weight 00:18:36.079 --> 00:18:38.599 that European writers treated the Greek gods. 00:18:38.839 --> 00:18:41.460 For him, they were real forces in the lives of 00:18:41.460 --> 00:18:43.640 his characters. I want to run through a few of 00:18:43.640 --> 00:18:45.759 his key works just to give our listeners a sense 00:18:45.759 --> 00:18:47.740 of the incredible breadth here. We mentioned 00:18:47.740 --> 00:18:49.900 the violent land. That's the cocoa struggle, 00:18:50.079 --> 00:18:52.640 the mud and blood of his youth. Pure social realism. 00:18:53.240 --> 00:18:55.819 A brutal, powerful book. Then we have Captains 00:18:55.819 --> 00:18:58.559 of the Sands from 1937. Captains of the Sands 00:18:58.559 --> 00:19:01.339 is a masterpiece of his early period. It depicts 00:19:01.339 --> 00:19:03.420 the life of a gang of street children in Salvador. 00:19:04.099 --> 00:19:06.839 It's heartbreaking, but it has so much heart. 00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:10.140 It shows the solidarity among these kids who 00:19:10.140 --> 00:19:12.779 have nothing. The book was actually banned and 00:19:12.779 --> 00:19:15.279 burned. Of course it was. Then we have The Shift, 00:19:15.460 --> 00:19:18.660 Donna Flor and her two husbands in 1966. Which 00:19:18.660 --> 00:19:21.799 brings in magic realism and humor. The premise 00:19:21.799 --> 00:19:24.640 itself is just genius. Yeah. A woman, Donna Flohr, 00:19:24.680 --> 00:19:27.359 marries a respectable, boring pharmacist after 00:19:27.359 --> 00:19:30.079 her wild, gambling, passionate first husband 00:19:30.079 --> 00:19:33.460 dies. She chooses stability. She does. But she 00:19:33.460 --> 00:19:36.079 misses the passion. She misses the chaos. So 00:19:36.079 --> 00:19:38.980 her desire literally summons the ghost of her 00:19:38.980 --> 00:19:41.119 first husband back. And she lives with the both 00:19:41.119 --> 00:19:42.660 of them. One in the streets, one in the sheets, 00:19:42.720 --> 00:19:44.720 so to speak. It's the ultimate have your pick 00:19:44.720 --> 00:19:47.019 and eat it too fantasy. But it's also a metaphor 00:19:47.019 --> 00:19:49.059 for Brazil, isn't it? Yeah. You need the order. 00:19:49.400 --> 00:19:50.980 And you need the chaos. You need the respectable 00:19:50.980 --> 00:19:52.980 pharmacist, and you need the passionate gambler. 00:19:52.980 --> 00:19:54.839 You can't have one without the other. And then 00:19:54.839 --> 00:19:58.720 there's Tieta in 1977, another epic focused on 00:19:58.720 --> 00:20:00.980 a strong female protagonist returning to her 00:20:00.980 --> 00:20:04.440 hometown, and one with a great title, The Double 00:20:04.440 --> 00:20:07.920 Death of Quincas Waterbray. A fantastic, hilarious 00:20:07.920 --> 00:20:10.960 exploration of mortality and humor. It's about 00:20:10.960 --> 00:20:14.240 a respectable man who dies to his family and 00:20:14.240 --> 00:20:16.900 becomes a bohemian drunk named Quincas Waterbray. 00:20:17.319 --> 00:20:19.400 When he actually dies, his respectable family 00:20:19.400 --> 00:20:21.859 tries to give him a proper burial. But his friends 00:20:21.859 --> 00:20:24.160 have other plans. His bohemian friends steal 00:20:24.160 --> 00:20:26.019 the corpse to take him out for one last party. 00:20:26.119 --> 00:20:28.779 And in a way, he dies a second, much more fitting 00:20:28.779 --> 00:20:31.579 death at sea during a storm. It sounds like Weekend 00:20:31.579 --> 00:20:34.079 at Bernie's, but with profound literary merit. 00:20:34.319 --> 00:20:36.420 Laughs come out. It has a bit more depth, I'd 00:20:36.420 --> 00:20:38.819 say, but yes. What ties all these together, from 00:20:38.819 --> 00:20:41.079 the street kids to the ghost husbands, is his 00:20:41.079 --> 00:20:44.140 tone. He depicts a cheerful, optimistic country. 00:20:44.569 --> 00:20:46.910 And this is so important. He doesn't ignore the 00:20:46.910 --> 00:20:49.049 poverty. He doesn't whitewash the problem. No. 00:20:49.130 --> 00:20:51.849 And that is the magic trick. He shows the deep 00:20:51.849 --> 00:20:54.309 social and economic differences. He never lets 00:20:54.309 --> 00:20:56.849 you forget the inequality. But he refuses to 00:20:56.849 --> 00:20:59.549 strip the poor of their joy. He refuses to paint 00:20:59.549 --> 00:21:01.809 them only as victims. That's it. They are vibrant, 00:21:01.950 --> 00:21:05.210 complex people who love and eat and dance and 00:21:05.210 --> 00:21:08.150 gossip and fight and scheme. I love that. He 00:21:08.150 --> 00:21:11.130 refused to let poverty be their only defining 00:21:11.130 --> 00:21:14.779 characteristic. He gave them agency and More 00:21:14.779 --> 00:21:18.019 importantly, joy. Precisely. Now, we promised 00:21:18.019 --> 00:21:21.180 some oddities, and I have been waiting patiently 00:21:21.180 --> 00:21:23.140 to get to this. We have to talk about the frogs. 00:21:23.319 --> 00:21:26.960 The frogs. Jorge Amado, serious literary giant, 00:21:27.359 --> 00:21:30.839 Nobel contender, former congressman, was a frog 00:21:30.839 --> 00:21:33.160 collector. He was a lifelong frog enthusiast. 00:21:33.220 --> 00:21:35.980 Right. But to be clear, not live ones. He collected 00:21:35.980 --> 00:21:39.160 frog -themed souvenirs. Like little ceramic frogs 00:21:39.160 --> 00:21:41.940 for the garden. Ceramic wood, glass, crystal, 00:21:42.079 --> 00:21:44.680 everything. Frogs from all over the world. Whenever 00:21:44.680 --> 00:21:46.599 he or Zelia traveled, they'd bring one back. 00:21:46.799 --> 00:21:48.900 He had a huge collection. If you go to his house 00:21:48.900 --> 00:21:51.119 in Salvador today, which is a museum, you can 00:21:51.119 --> 00:21:52.980 still see them on display in the garden and all 00:21:52.980 --> 00:21:54.660 over the house. I just love the image of this 00:21:54.660 --> 00:21:56.779 man who sat in the constituent assembly and debated 00:21:56.779 --> 00:21:59.359 the future of the nation, coming home and, you 00:21:59.359 --> 00:22:01.759 know, arranging his little toy frogs. It adds 00:22:01.759 --> 00:22:04.599 such a human, whimsical touch. It softens that 00:22:04.599 --> 00:22:07.380 communist, militant image significantly, doesn't 00:22:07.380 --> 00:22:10.000 it? Completely. And the scientific community 00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:12.559 actually recognized this passion, which is the 00:22:12.559 --> 00:22:14.329 best part. part of the story. Oh, it's wonderful. 00:22:14.529 --> 00:22:18.170 In 2017, a new species of frog was discovered 00:22:18.170 --> 00:22:20.450 in Bahia. Please tell me they named it after 00:22:20.450 --> 00:22:22.869 him. They did. It is called Philodite's amidoi. 00:22:23.509 --> 00:22:26.130 The scientists who discovered it noted in their 00:22:26.130 --> 00:22:28.549 paper that not only was it found in the region 00:22:28.549 --> 00:22:30.569 he wrote about, but they knew about his collection. 00:22:31.049 --> 00:22:34.029 So now there is a real frog hopping around the 00:22:34.029 --> 00:22:36.230 Atlantic rainforest carrying his name. That is 00:22:36.230 --> 00:22:38.869 better than a Nobel Prize, in my opinion. A species 00:22:38.869 --> 00:22:41.069 is forever. Well, speaking of the Nobel Prize. 00:22:42.009 --> 00:22:44.529 That is a sore spot for some Amato fans. He was 00:22:44.529 --> 00:22:47.049 nominated, right. Many times. The Nobel records 00:22:47.049 --> 00:22:49.890 are sealed for 50 years, but the released archives 00:22:49.890 --> 00:22:52.750 show he was nominated at least seven consecutive 00:22:52.750 --> 00:22:57.309 times from 1967 to 1973 and probably more after 00:22:57.309 --> 00:22:59.289 that. And he never won. He never won the Nobel. 00:22:59.410 --> 00:23:01.589 There's always speculation why maybe he was seen 00:23:01.589 --> 00:23:04.130 as too popular, too readable. Maybe the early 00:23:04.130 --> 00:23:06.569 communism spooked the committee. Maybe the genre 00:23:06.569 --> 00:23:09.619 shift confused them. Who knows? However. He cleaned 00:23:09.619 --> 00:23:11.519 up almost everywhere else. What are some of the 00:23:11.519 --> 00:23:13.859 big ones he did win? He won the Camons Prize 00:23:13.859 --> 00:23:16.400 in 1994, which is the most prestigious award 00:23:16.400 --> 00:23:18.259 for the Portuguese language. Yeah. Sort of the 00:23:18.259 --> 00:23:20.599 Booker Prize for Portuguese. He won the International 00:23:20.599 --> 00:23:23.859 Nonino Prize in Italy. He got honorary doctorates 00:23:23.859 --> 00:23:27.019 from universities in Israel, France, Italy, just 00:23:27.019 --> 00:23:28.880 all over the world. And the French Legion of 00:23:28.880 --> 00:23:31.720 Honor. Yes, awarded by President Francois Mitterrand 00:23:31.720 --> 00:23:34.259 himself. This is the same country that expelled 00:23:34.259 --> 00:23:36.319 him as a dangerous communist a few decades earlier. 00:23:36.500 --> 00:23:39.200 What a turnaround. It really shows how he outlasted 00:23:39.200 --> 00:23:41.220 his critics. The governments that once banned 00:23:41.220 --> 00:23:43.980 him eventually had to give him medals. He also 00:23:43.980 --> 00:23:45.839 became a fixture of the Brazilian establishment 00:23:45.839 --> 00:23:49.240 in his later years. He occupied the 23rd chair 00:23:49.240 --> 00:23:51.839 of the Brazilian Academy of Letters from 1961 00:23:51.839 --> 00:23:55.740 until his death. A true... Immortal, as they're 00:23:55.740 --> 00:23:58.220 called. And there's a sweet detail about that 00:23:58.220 --> 00:24:01.160 chair. When a member of the academy dies, there 00:24:01.160 --> 00:24:03.380 is usually a fierce competition and vote for 00:24:03.380 --> 00:24:06.279 who takes the empty seat. Right. When Amato died 00:24:06.279 --> 00:24:09.579 in 2001, who do you think took his place? I have 00:24:09.579 --> 00:24:13.559 a feeling I know. His wife, Zelie Gatai. She 00:24:13.559 --> 00:24:15.900 was elected to replace him in the academy. That 00:24:15.900 --> 00:24:17.960 is beautiful. It kept the seat in the family. 00:24:18.119 --> 00:24:21.299 A literary dynasty. It did. And speaking of family, 00:24:21.440 --> 00:24:23.839 he had some other interesting connections. His 00:24:23.839 --> 00:24:27.160 cousin was Vera Clouseau. Wait, the actress from 00:24:27.160 --> 00:24:30.059 Diabolique? The one and only. The star of Diabolique 00:24:30.059 --> 00:24:32.420 and The Wages of Fear. Great. Classic French 00:24:32.420 --> 00:24:35.839 cinema. And his cousin Gilberto Amato was a well 00:24:35.839 --> 00:24:39.099 -known politician and writer himself. Creativity 00:24:39.099 --> 00:24:41.859 and public service really ran in the blood. So 00:24:41.859 --> 00:24:43.500 let's look at the final chapter of his life. 00:24:43.640 --> 00:24:46.559 He lived a long, full life. He did. He lived 00:24:46.559 --> 00:24:49.390 to be 88. But his final years were marked by 00:24:49.390 --> 00:24:51.750 health struggles. He suffered from diabetes and 00:24:51.750 --> 00:24:53.690 had serious heart and lung issues. He passed 00:24:53.690 --> 00:24:56.849 away on August 6, 2001, just four days shy of 00:24:56.849 --> 00:24:59.589 his 89th birthday. In Salvador. Yeah. He died 00:24:59.589 --> 00:25:02.289 in the city he loved and immortalized. And in 00:25:02.289 --> 00:25:04.630 a fitting tribute, his ashes weren't put in a 00:25:04.630 --> 00:25:07.450 cold mausoleum or a cemetery. No. They were spread 00:25:07.450 --> 00:25:09.450 in the garden of his house under a mango tree. 00:25:09.609 --> 00:25:12.150 Wow. Cementing his connection to the land he 00:25:12.150 --> 00:25:14.799 wrote about right to the very end. Exactly. He 00:25:14.799 --> 00:25:16.700 returned to the soil of Bahia. And the honors 00:25:16.700 --> 00:25:19.180 kept coming even after he was gone. They did. 00:25:19.559 --> 00:25:22.880 He received the Order of Cultural Merit posthumously. 00:25:23.099 --> 00:25:26.279 And the Jorge Amado Foundation continues to operate 00:25:26.279 --> 00:25:28.380 in Pilarino, the historic center of Salvador. 00:25:28.579 --> 00:25:30.819 It's a living museum that preserves his estate 00:25:30.819 --> 00:25:33.680 and promotes Bahian culture. It's a pilgrimage 00:25:33.680 --> 00:25:36.539 site for readers. Absolutely. So if we look back 00:25:36.539 --> 00:25:39.480 at this whole journey, we started with this angry 00:25:39.480 --> 00:25:41.619 young man in the Rebels Academy fighting against 00:25:41.619 --> 00:25:44.980 the system. Yeah. We saw him. burned in effigy, 00:25:44.980 --> 00:25:49.039 exiled, hunted by the police. And we ended with 00:25:49.039 --> 00:25:52.519 this smiling grandfather figure, a meritorious 00:25:52.519 --> 00:25:54.940 citizen of freedom and social justice. It's a 00:25:54.940 --> 00:25:57.420 remarkable arc. And I think the key takeaway 00:25:57.420 --> 00:25:59.660 for me is that his greatest political act wasn't 00:25:59.660 --> 00:26:01.980 his time in parliament. It wasn't the laws he 00:26:01.980 --> 00:26:03.859 signed. I agree completely. What was it, do you 00:26:03.859 --> 00:26:06.630 think? It was his insistence on portrayal. He 00:26:06.630 --> 00:26:08.529 insisted on portraying the Brazilian people, 00:26:08.650 --> 00:26:10.890 specifically the mixed race, working class people 00:26:10.890 --> 00:26:14.210 of Bahia, as complex, valuable and above all, 00:26:14.289 --> 00:26:16.630 capable of joy. He refused to let them be invisible. 00:26:16.829 --> 00:26:18.890 And he refused to let them be just statistics 00:26:18.890 --> 00:26:21.529 of misery. He didn't just want the world to pity 00:26:21.529 --> 00:26:23.569 them. He wanted the world to love them. That 00:26:23.569 --> 00:26:26.470 is a powerful distinction. Pity versus love. 00:26:26.690 --> 00:26:30.190 Yeah. And in doing so, he really did define the 00:26:30.190 --> 00:26:32.599 soul of a nation for the rest of the world. It 00:26:32.599 --> 00:26:34.980 raises a provocative thought for us to maybe 00:26:34.980 --> 00:26:37.599 leave with you, the listeners. We often think 00:26:37.599 --> 00:26:39.400 you have to choose, right? You're either a serious 00:26:39.400 --> 00:26:42.359 activist or a popular entertainer. We think social 00:26:42.359 --> 00:26:46.759 critique has to be dry and angry and, well, violent 00:26:46.759 --> 00:26:49.819 like his early books. But Amado did both. He 00:26:49.819 --> 00:26:51.619 started with the violence, but he ended up with 00:26:51.619 --> 00:26:54.099 the celebration. He did. He seduced the world 00:26:54.099 --> 00:26:56.559 with the scent of cloves and cinnamon. And once 00:26:56.559 --> 00:26:58.940 he had their attention, he showed them the reality 00:26:58.940 --> 00:27:02.039 of Brazil, good and bad. So maybe effective change 00:27:02.039 --> 00:27:04.480 doesn't always require violence in the text. 00:27:04.599 --> 00:27:06.920 Maybe sometimes you catch more flies with honey 00:27:06.920 --> 00:27:09.460 or in this case with muquica and carnival. Did 00:27:09.460 --> 00:27:11.839 he achieve more by celebrating the culture than 00:27:11.839 --> 00:27:13.880 he did by just denouncing the system? I think 00:27:13.880 --> 00:27:16.200 he would have argued yes. He found a more powerful 00:27:16.200 --> 00:27:19.079 and maybe more human way to tell the truth. So 00:27:19.079 --> 00:27:22.200 do yourself a favor. Go pick up a copy of Gabriela, 00:27:22.259 --> 00:27:24.859 Clove and Cinnamon or Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands. 00:27:25.059 --> 00:27:27.599 Step into that world. See the Brazil that Jorge 00:27:27.599 --> 00:27:30.420 Amado built. You won't regret it. Thanks for 00:27:30.420 --> 00:27:32.420 diving deep with us. We'll see you on the next 00:27:32.420 --> 00:27:32.599 one.