Doramar or the Odyssey: Stories

Anyone who was dazzled by the narrative mastery, the solid and delicate construction of characters, the refined language and the Brazilian theme of Torto arado, a novel that made Itamar Vieira Junior one of the central names in our contemporary literature, will find this Doramar or the odyssey even more reasons to celebrate the author’s fiction. In a permanent dialogue with our social issues and the Brazilian literary tradition, Itamar brings together a set of stories that are both current and based on the multiplicity of cultures that form the country. Part of the texts in this volume were published in A oração do carrasco (2017), a finalist for the Jabuti Prize in 2018. To these, others were added, previously unpublished in book form. Read in sequence, they attest to the vitality of a writer who finds inspiration in characters who defy the limits imposed on them. Thus, stories such as "A Floresta do Adeus", "Voltar" and the story that gives the title to this volume talk about female characters who face the most adverse conditions. Others, shed light on our slave past, evoke Afro-Brazilian culture ("Farol das almas", "Alma"), indigenous ancestry ("The aboni spirit of things"), marginality and madness ("Manto da presente ", about the artist Arthur Bispo do Rosário). And there is even room in Itamar's imagination for a story like "In the depths of the lake", in which something Gothic insinuates itself on the fringes of the plot