A alma encantadora das ruas
by João do Rio
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Description
This is an extraordinarily well done bilingual, annotated and illustrated new edition of an old book of {cro nicas}. The graphic design in black and dark blue has everything to do with the volume's title and content: {The Enchanting Soul of the Streets}. Journalist Joa o do Rio's 1908 book release is the first of a series entitled River of January - Rio de Janeiro through the Eyes of its Writers. The editors could hardly have chosen a better book with which to launch a series aiming at show more republishing the most representative works on the Carioca life of the past 200 years. Joa o do Rio's {cro nicas} truly convey a fascinating, incredibly animated and in-depth report of a city undergoing rapid transformation in the first years of the 20th century. In Brazil at large his work as journalist was a groundbreaker, because, before penning his articles, he would conduct extensive, firsthand field research into the undesirable and unknown corners and alleys of the city. More remarkably, he would not write his pieces as others would. He preferred a subjective perspective, the light tone, the intimate register, and the esthetic concerns which few {cro nica} literary writers, like Machado de Assis, were already applying. The combination of those traits was successfully coupled with Joa o do Rio's wide intellectual background, undeniable talent for writing, and boldness to enter and to understand marginal enclaves, such as tattoo service providers or extremely overcrowded, rodent-infested hotels and abandoned colonial houses in downtown. The topics of his research and, therefore, of the {cro nicas} he produced, extended far beyond his view of the city's exotic or misbegotten dwellers. His texts reveal other materials which may delight anthropologists, sociologists, and historians of various subfields. He, for example, collects and transcribes dozens of printed prayers sold in the streets, an impressive collection of poems written by inmates, a huge repertoire of lyrics which people sang during seasonal festivals, and a catalog of bands and other musical groups which performed in Belle E poque Rio de Janeiro. Joa o do Rio also investigates the complex lives, power dynamics, and brutal exploitation behind the lives of women and children involved in the begging industry; the unusual life-style of high-profile prostitutes; the overbearing level of intimidation under which coal deckhands and stevedores fought for better working conditions; the intertwined web of amorous relations that provoked love crimes; and the connection between the literature of violence shared by inmates and the new ideas they arguably acquired from such readings. show lessTags
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33+ Works 175 Members
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- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, Nonfiction, General Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 869.3 — Literature & rhetoric Spanish Literature Literatures of Portuguese and Galician languages Portuguese fiction
- LCC
- PQ9697 .R59 .A78 — Language and Literature French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese literatures Portuguese literature Provincial, local, colonial, etc. Brazil
- BISAC
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- (3.60)
- Languages
- Portuguese (Portugal)
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 11
- ASINs
- 3
