Brazil · Historical fiction
The War of the End of the World
In the dry backlands of northeastern Brazil, a religious community gathers around a wandering preacher and comes into conflict with the young republic. Vargas Llosa follows believers, soldiers, journalists and outsiders towards the catastrophe at Canudos, making the landscape inseparable from the convictions of those who inhabit it. Dust, distance and deprivation give the novel its physical force. It reveals a Brazil whose competing ideas of faith, progress and belonging become tragically incapable of understanding one another.
Bahia; Canudos