Amado's Gabriela available in Dutch

Jorge Leal Amado de Faria (1912-2001) was a Brazilian writer of the Modernist school. He was the best-known of modern Brazilian writers, his work having been translated into some 49 languages and popularized in film, notably Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands in 1978. His work reflects the image of a mestizo Brazil and is marked by religious syncretism. A cheerful and optimistic country and at the same time, with deep social and economic differences.

His book Gabriela is a classic. Recently, in Brazil,  TV Globo produced a short novela about the book. This book is now translated in Dutch. 

Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon (Portuguese: Gabriela, cravo e canela) is a Brazilian Modernist novel. It was written in 1958 and published in English in 1962. It is widely considered one of his finest works.

The book tells two separate but related tales: first, the romance between Nacib Saad, a respectable bar owner of Syrian origin, and Gabriela, an innocent and captivating migrant worker from the impoverished interior. And second, the political struggle between the old guard of Cacao growers, led by the Bastos clan, and the forces of modernization, in the person of Mundinho Falcão, a wealthy young man from Rio de Janeiro. It can be read simultaneously as an unusual, charming love story, a description of the political and social forces at work in 1920s Brazil, a somewhat satirical depiction of Latin American aspirations to "modernity", and a celebration of the local culture and pleasures of Bahia.

The book was made into series for Brazilian television in 1960, in 1976 and again in 2012. A feature film of the novel was directed by Bruno Barreto in 1983. The feature version starred Sonia Braga as Gabriela and Marcello Mastroianni as Nacib, and featured original music by Antonio Carlos Jobim.

More information about Gabriela in Dutch:

http://www.uitgeverijathenaeum.nl