The Apprentice Tourist

De: Mário de Andrade, Flora Thomson-DeVeaux - translator, Flora Thomson-DeVeaux - introduction, Flora Thomson-DeVeaux

Narrado por: André Santana, Elsa Lepecki Bean

A Brazilian masterpiece, now in English for the first time: a playfully profound chronicle of an urban sophisticate’s misadventures in the Amazon

A Penguin Classic

“My life’s done a somersault,” wrote Mário de Andrade in a letter, on the verge of taking a leap. After years of dreaming about Amazonia, and almost fifty years before Bruce Chatwin ventured into one of the most remote regions of South America in In Patagonia, Andrade, the queer mixed-race “pope” of Brazilian modernism and author of the epic novel Macunaíma, finally embarks on a three-month steamboat voyage up the great river and into one of the most dangerous and breathtakingly beautiful corners of the world. Rife with shrewd observations and sparkling wit, The Apprentice Tourist not only offers an awed and awe-inspiring fish-out-of-water account of the Indigenous peoples and now-endangered landscapes of Brazil that he encounters (and, comically, sometimes fails to reach), but also traces his internal metamorphosis: The trip prompts him to rethink his ingrained Eurocentrism, challenges his received narratives about the Amazon, and alters the way he understands his motherland and the vast diversity of cultures found within it.

Reseñas de la Crítica

“The Apprentice Tourist shows Andrade’s fascination with Amazonian cultures—and his utter boredom with the government officials and elites who welcomed the group of travelers along the way. . . . [It] offer[s] an important corrective in bringing canonical Brazilian works into English.” —The New York Times

“A playful romp . . . The translator ha[s] done remarkable work, approaching the unruly text with joy and scholarship . . . fascination and care.” —Joy Williams, Book Post

“Farce from start to finish . . . Andrade . . . relay[s] details, with wide-eyed credulity, of his extraordinary encounters with indigenous communities, some partially real and others completely falsified, yet always well and truly beyond belief. . . . These as well as other outlandish events . . . Andrade recounts with the straightest of faces. . . . It was in the process of mythmaking that the country of Andrade’s imagination became more vivid, more alive.” —Prospect magazine

Too Many Days...Too Little Detail

Not sure how this got such great reviews in the NY Times. The book is made of of many days and the story might be a few minutes. May 2,3,4,5,6. Too much description of the flowers, meat market, a dolphin etc. Very little about the characters in the novel. I got tired of hearing the days mentioned every 90 seconds and quit. NOt sure what the plot was if there was one. A bit too much stress on the Portuguese names.