THE DOMINICAN SUPPER

Irony as a raw material of literature. Add dashes of fable and bursts of erudition. You'll get a free sample of The Dominican Supper: A Neo-Latin Romance. Santos Neves is a man of letters; with a literary background—he studied Literature at the Federal University of Espírito Santo—but above all, a voracious reader. He seeks inspiration in works of Classical Antiquity and in controversial everyday themes, such as eroticism, machismo, vanity, and taboos like virginity. All this is laced with satire and sarcasm. Reinaldo Santos Neves' text transposes the "lower Rome" of the Caesars (Roman Empire) to 1979 in Brazil, a time when the country was immersed in an oppressive regime. The neo-Latin atmosphere, present from the title onwards, is confirmed by the lexical selection (words in Latin and in current usage and orality), rhapsodies inspired by Homer's Odyssey, and a series of nuances and literary and mythological references that the reader encounters page after page.