Gabriela, cravo e canela (Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon) is a Brazilian Modernist novel. It was written by Jorge Amado in 1958. It is widely considered one of his finest works.
The action of the novel begins in 1925 in the provincial port of Ilhéus in Brazil's north-central state of Bahia. Ilhéus served as an important point for the distribution and export of cacao, the region's primary product and a topic of much discussion in the novel.The work is called a return to the cocoa. Citing the universe of colonels, gangsters, prostitutes and crooks with various sizes, in designing the society's horizon cocoa. In the 20s the then rich islets and quiet, longing progress with intense nightlife coast between bars and brothels, the drama unfolds, it ends up becoming a burst of revelry and light, color, sound, sex and laughter.
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 landed Cacao growers, led by the Bastos clan, and the forces of modernization, in the person of Mundinho Falcão, a wealthy young man from São Paulo. 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 a film for Brazilian television in 1960 and again in 1976. 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.
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