Jubiabá by Jorge Amado (trans. Margaret Neves)

This book was very intriguing and left me with a lot of questions. I'm particularly interested in the way genre works--Baldo as a samba writer and as an ABC writer, Gordo as a poet, and our narrator as a participant in the moment and someone looking back. There's a brief spoof of a modernist novel and some attention to epic form, as well. I'm also interested in the ways that religion (Macumba), the eye of mercy, slavery, and class consciousness connect up. If anything, this novel works as a bildungsroman and Baldo's transformation from bandit-hero who wants his own ABC to organizer who wants an ABC for the strike is an important part of that work. There are some gendered absences in the novel, especially for Baldo: Lindinalva and his mother are both conspicuously absent and Aunt Luisa departs early. Finally, I'm still trying to figure out why the novel is named for Jubiabá and not Baldo. Very intriguing--an entertaining example of social realism from the 1930s.