18.00 x 12.50 cm, 280 pp. ISBN 9788535914061 54,90
Captains of the Sands (Pocket) Novel, 1937 | Afterword by Milton Hatoum
In this raw and moving tale, Jorge Amado tells the story of a group of poor boys living in an abandoned warehouse on the waterfront in Salvador. The Captains of the Sands are all between nine and sixteen years of age and scrape by on cons and petty theft, terrorizing the Bahia capital in the process. From the brave and scar-faced leader Pedro Bala (Bullet) to the pious Pirulito (Lolly-pop), who prays every night for the purging of his sins; from the sensible Professor (Teacher), the only fully literate member of the group, to the seducer Gato (The Cat), a trainee pimp, each has his own personality, worldview and modest set of dreams. The gang’s notoriousness spreads throughout the city, drawing down the ire of the press, the police, the juvenile courts and “distinguished families”. But there is also help out there: Father José Pedro, the saint-mother Don’Aninha, the docker João de Adão (John Adam) and capoeira dancer Queirdo-de-Deus (God Beloved). The boys grow up and go their separate ways: a sailor, an artist, a friar, a gigolo, a highway bandit. The leader Pedro Bala takes it upon himself to fight to change the fate of the most abject poor. Though influenced by the author’s communist militancy at the time it was written, Captains of the Sands transcends its immediate political persuasion. Caught between the innocence of childhood and the raw adult world, the boys have to negotiate a daily reality at once free and vulnerable, revealing a groundlessness and fragility that in many ways still ring true today.
Jorge Amado terminou de escrever Capitães da Areia a bordo de um navio a caminho do México, durante uma viagem pela América Latina e Estados Unidos. Enquanto isso, no Brasil, Getúlio Vargas instituía o Estado Novo. Na volta ao país, em novembro de 1937, o escritor foi preso em Manaus pela polícia do novo regime. Não era a primeira vez: ele havia sido preso no ano anterior, acusado de participar da Intentona Comunista. Capitães da Areia revelava-se então um livro profético: o escritor vivia história similar à do protagonista Pedro Bala, que acaba perseguido e detido por ter se tornado “militante proletário”. Quando publicado, o livro foi considerado subversivo e teve inúmeros exemplares apreendidos e queimados pela polícia em praça pública. Jorge Amado recebeu a notícia na cadeia. O livro ganharia nova edição apenas em 1944. Desde então, tem sido o romance mais editado de Jorge Amado:
When Legless and Big João arrived, Pedro Bala got up off the sand and called the leaders together. They went over to the Professor’s candle. Dora came too and sat down between Big João and Good-Life. The drifter lighted a cigarette, said to Dora: “I’m learning how to play a wild samba. And I’m going to get me a guitar, sister.” “You really are playing good, brother.” “It went over big at parties ...” Pedro Bala interrupted the conversation. They were looking at his lip, his swollen eye. He told them about the episode: “Four against one ...” “He needs a lesson,” Legless was laughing. “1 won’t let the guy get away with it.” They worked out a plan of battle. And around midnight some thirty went out. Ezequiel’s gang slept around the Porto da Lenha, in some overturned boats and on the dock. Dora went alongside Pedro Bala and she carried a switchblade too. Legless said: “She even looks like Rosa Palmeirão.” There never had been a woman as brave as Rosa Palmeirão. She took on six policemen all at one time.
