Brazil is the first work of fiction to depict five centuries of a great nation's remarkable history. With a stunning cast of real and fictional characters, this unforgettable epic unfolds in South America, Africa and Europe.Lacing the tale together are the shifting fortunes of two dissimilar Brazilian families. The Cavalcantis are among the original Portuguese settlers and carve a gracious plantation out of the Pernambuco wilderness of the north - the classic Brazilian casa grande, vast, powerful, and built with slave labor. The da Silvas of mixed Portuguese and Tupiniquin blood are a spirited family of dreamers, pathfinders, soldiers and entrepreneurs. For generations, they set their eyes on El Dorado, a vision of wealth ultimately achieved in a huge financial empire that makes them power brokers in the new Brazil.Brazil is an intensely human story, brutal and violent, tender and passionate. Perilous explorations through the Brazilian wilderness...the perpetual clash of pioneer and native, visionary and fortune hunter, master and slave, zealot and exploiter...the thunder of war on land and sea as European powers and South American nations pursue their territorial conquests...the triumphs and tragedies of a people who built a nation covering half the South American continent...all are here in one spellbinding saga.The principal characters, both real and imaginary, are hard to forget. Among them: the great Indian warrior-chief Aruana; Amador da Silva, a bandeirante 'flag-bearing' pioneer and emerald hunter; Secundus Proot, a Dutch artist-adventurer in the Amazon; Black Peter, a freed African slave who takes murderous revenge on his persecutors; Antonio Paciencia, a brave soldier and humble hero of the landless; Francisco Lopez, doomed and gallant president of Paraguay; Anthony the Counselor of Canudos, visionary rebel of the backlands.The result is an unsentimentalized historical novel that combines adventure with an impressive level of research and depicts Brazil free from the eternal stereotypes An Illustrated Guide to the Novel offers a wealth of images and maps and access to the writer's private journal bringing a unique insight into the novel and its creativity."Uys has accomplished what no Brazilian author from José de Alencar to Jorge Amado was able to do. He is the first outsider with the total honesty and sympathy to write our national epic in all its decisive episodes. Descriptions like those of the war with Paraguay do not find in our literature any rival capable of surpassing them." - Professor Wilson Martins, Jornal do Brasil