Sweat (novel)
Author | Jorge Amado |
---|---|
Original title | Suor |
Cover artist | Santa Rosa |
Country | Brazil |
Language | Portuguese |
Publisher | Ariel |
Publication date | 1934 |
Pages | 211 |
Sweat (
Background
Sweat, Jorge Amado's third novel, was written in Rio de Janeiro in 1934, when he was 22 and an active communist supporter. The next year, the book was translated into Russian and published in Moscow, along with
The book
The novel is a portrait of the daily misery of urban life in Salvador. The title, Sweat, indicates both the novel's aim and its earthy style.[3] 600 people live in the building on the Pelourinho, including workers, washerwomen, prostitutes, and anarchists. Their stories follow each other but the main character is the tenement itself. The rooms are divided and subdivided and even the patio is rented out. The only empty spaces are the stairs, which the residents use as a toilet and where rubbish piles up.[1] Amado uses a documentary or modernist style to portray the exploitation of the working poor. His use of pieces of descriptive detail gives earthy images of their squalid living conditions but there are also early signs of the romanticism to be found in his later works.[4]
References
- ^ a b c Rossi, Luiz Gustavo Freitas. "Sweat - Afterword". Jorge Amado. Companhia das Letras. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
- ISBN 978-0-14-310635-7.
- ^ Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2004. "Jorge Amado". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
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: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ISBN 1-884964-18-4. Retrieved 29 December 2014.