Jorge Amado. Identity Journeys

Often considered the most significant Brazilian writer of the 20^th century, Jorge Amado is more than a “regionalist” or “traditional” author. It is true that he used certain canonical aspects of Latin American literature (the history of the continent, the social and ethical tendency, love and its various forms of manifestation etc.), but he always reconfigured and re-contextualized all these, in order to express not only a modern way of thinking and feeling, but also to allude to some mythical figures, extremely important for the Brazilian spirituality. For example, his famous novel Gabriela (1958) presents, by means of the tumultuous love story between Nacib and his new cook, Gabriela, new images (and meanings) of certain indigenous divine figures, underlining especially the feminine principle, by means of the protagonist’s initiatory journey and her successive transformations.