Crooked Plow (2020) by Itamar Viera Junior

 Book Review

Crooked Plow (2020)

by Itamar Viera Junior

   Last 2024 Booker International Prize longlist review before the shortlist is announced tomorrow, April 9th.  Crooked Plow is another title that made it into translation out of Brazil on the strength of a domestic prize win.  It's a work of realist historical fiction about the lives of of the freed slaves Brazil after 1888.  These people, who were often of mixed African/Indian decent were simply waved off the land where they had been enslaved and told to go elsewhere, with the result that many, such as the family in this book, simply walked for a couple days and took of residence as tenant farmer at a similar plantation. 

  The plight of the peasant farmer isn't exactly a new subject in Brazilian literature but my understanding is that this particular culture- that of freed slaves who remained on rural plantations, isn't covered- in most Brazilian lit the African descended Brazilians are city dwellers and not part of a socio-economic mono-culture like the people in this book.

   I really enjoyed Crooked Plow if only as a relief from the parade of nervous, young auto-fictionists that have so far dominated my reading of the 2024 International Booker longlist.  Shortlist comes tomorrow!!!