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Crooked Plow

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Crooked Plow
AuthorItamar Vieira Junior
Original titleTorto Arado
TranslatorJohnny Lorenz
LanguagePortuguese
Set inBahia, Brazil
PublisherVerso Fiction
Publication date
2019
Publication placeBrazil
Published in English
June 27, 2023
Awards2018 Prêmio LeYa, 2020 Prêmio Jabuti, 2020 Prêmio Oceanos
ISBN1839766409

Crooked Plow (Portuguese: Torto Arado) is a novel by Brazilian author Itamar Vieira Junior. It tells the story of two Afro-Brazilian sisters, Bibiana and Belonísia, who experience a life-altering tragedy in childhood. The sisters live as tenant farmers with their family in Chapada Diamantina in the Brazilian state of Bahia. The novel won numerous literary awards.

Summary

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Section I and II

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The book's first sections are told through the eyes of the sisters, Bibiana and Belonísia. The story begins with the sisters sneaking into their grandmother's room and locating a knife beneath her bed, locked away in a suitcase. Tempted, they each put the mysterious knife in their mouths. One sister is unharmed, but the other cuts her tongue so severely that she is never able to speak again. The sisters become emotionally and mentally entwined as one must be a voice for the other. "That's how I became a part of Belonísia, just as she was becoming part of me...we felt like Siamese twins, sharing the same tongue to make the words that revealed what we needed to become." They grow up together in their parent's Afro-Brazilian sharecropping village in Bahia state, Brazil.

As childhood ends, a pregnant Bibiana secretly departs in the middle of the night with her boyfriend, a local union organizer. Together, they plan to fight deep-rooted injustices far from home. However, they shortly return to the homestead with their newborn baby and find that Belonísia has married an abusive drunk.

Section III

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The last part of the book is told through the eyes of Santa Rita the fisherwoman, an African divinity who has been summoned by the sisters' father and channels the community's anger and strength.

Zeca Chapéu Grande, the sisters’ father, works as a Jarê curador in his community and is sought out to cure ailments of the body and spirit with prayers and roots.

Background

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On May 13, 1888, Princess Isabel, heir to the Brazilian throne, signed a "Golden Law" that freed 700,000 people from slavery in Brazil.[1] Brazil had received almost half of enslaved Africans brought to the Americas by European colonizers. Although slavery had formally ended, the Portuguese Brazilian elites conspired to keep the infrastructure of slavery through tenant farming. In this system, formerly enslaved people were still at the mercy of landowners who would grant them permission to live on their property in exchange for free labor, leaving them indebted to their employers and without much more freedom than they had under slavery. Crooked Plow takes place in the early 20th century, during the transition years when freed slaves and their descendants worked the land they were prevented from owning.

The book’s success in Brazil exemplifies a trend in the country’s literary landscape toward novels told from the perspective of the historically oppressed. In the past five years, Vieira Junior has been an integral member of a group of Brazilian writers who, in depicting racism and slavery through the viewpoint of racial minorities and enslaved peoples, remind us of Brazil’s painful colonial history while returning agency to those who suffered under its one-sided narration. - Jimin Kang, The Nation [1]

The Author

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The author, Itamar Vieira Junior (b. 1979) was born in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. He received a Master's degree in Geography and a PhD in Ethnic and African studies from Universidade Federal da Bahia. His doctoral research focused on the ongoing struggles of quilombos, the Afro-Brazilian communities organized by escaped slaves and their descendants.[2]

Critical reception

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The book received numerous positive reviews. Americas Quarterly stated the novel "captivated Brazil's literary scene" with a "tour de force of injustice, tragedy, affection and human dignity reminiscent of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables or John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath".[3] The Financial Times listed it as one of the Best Books of the year in 2023, "[Brazil's] deep-rooted racial and economic injustices are laid bare in one of the most celebrated Brazilian debut novels of recent times".[4] Publishers Weekly wrote, "Vieira Junior conveys the girls' childhood confusion and wonder in hypnotic prose, and he brings the close-knit Água Negra to life. This heralds the arrival of a welcome voice."[5]

The English translation, by Johnny Lorenz, also garnered positive acclaim as "gorgeous" and "skillful".[6][7] In 2024 it was nominated for the International Booker Prize, which recognizes both literary merit and the masterfulness of the English translation.

Awards and nominations

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References

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  1. ^ a b Kang, Jimin (2023-10-25). "In Brazil, a Best-Selling Novel Confronts the Brutal Afterlife of Slavery". ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 2024-04-01.
  2. ^ Vieira Junior, Itamar (2023). Crooked plow. Translated by Lorenz, Johnny. London New York: Verso. ISBN 978-1-83976-640-4.
  3. ^ Camila, Camila (October 19, 2021). "Book Review: Torto Arado". Americas Quarterly. Retrieved 2024-01-31.
  4. ^ "Best books of 2023 — Fiction in translation". www.ft.com. Retrieved 2024-03-31.
  5. ^ "Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior". Publishers Weekly. June 1, 2023. Retrieved 2024-03-31.
  6. ^ Meyer, Lily (August 19, 2023). "3 works in translation tell tales of standing up to right wrongs". NPR. Retrieved March 27, 2024.
  7. ^ "Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior — the lost voices". www.ft.com. Retrieved 2024-03-31.
  8. ^ ""The Land and Time of Torto Arado" by Marcelo Cordeiro de Mello - Latin American Literature Today". 2021-11-19. Retrieved 2024-03-31.
  9. ^ Assé, Ralph (2020-11-26). "'Torto arado' vence o prêmio Jabuti de Romance Literário". Estado de Minas (in Brazilian Portuguese). Archived from the original on 2024-03-27. Retrieved 2024-01-31.
  10. ^ "Prêmio Oceanos consagra 'Torto arado', romance de Itamar Vieira Junior". O Globo (in Brazilian Portuguese). 2020-12-18. Retrieved 2024-03-31.
  11. ^ IGO (2024-01-16). "Crooked Plow". Dublin Literary Award. Retrieved 2024-03-26.
  12. ^ "'Torto Arado', de Itamar Vieira Jr., ganha prêmio literário na França". O Globo (in Brazilian Portuguese). 4 April 2024. Retrieved 2024-07-02.
  13. ^ Creamer, Ella (2024-03-11). "Latin American fiction 'booms' again on International Booker prize longlist". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-03-26.
  14. ^ "Crooked Plow: Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2024 | The Booker Prizes". thebookerprizes.com. 2023-10-03. Retrieved 2024-04-11.
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