Brazilian Stories Vol.3 - The mysterious peacock and others - by Ana Maria Machado

In 2002, author Ana Maria Machado launched the first volume of a series of "Brazilian-style" stories that she intended to bring together in a book. The project was born from the author's desire to tell, in her own words, the stories she had heard from her parents, uncles and grandmother. After preparing a second volume in 2004, she finished another collection of ten stories. Generations of anonymous narrators helped to construct the most different versions of these stories from oral culture and Brazilian and universal folklore. To create her own, the writer read works by scholars of popular culture - such as Luís da Câmara Cascudo, Sílvio Romero, Monteiro Lobato, among others -, researched collections of short stories from varied traditions and, in the specific case of the story "The Mysterious Peacock ", also sought inspiration in cordel literature, where this narrative was immortalized. From a mix of research, comparison of different versions, personal memory and tradition, Brazilian Stories were born. In this third volume, she narrates "The mysterious peacock", "Cabra Cabrês", "Maria Sabida", "The lucky worm", "The tortoise and the fruit", "The fisherman and the Mother of Water", " The Pimpão chick", "The Prince of Green Feathers", "Four cents" and "The hunchback and the rich man"; while the illustrations by Odilon Moraes freely recreate the Brazilian environment of the tales, giving rise to a new, illustrated version of each story.