Guaporé

Eurico Cabral's debut novel, Guaporé, explores the daily life of the Mato Grosso backlands, with the river as witness to a powerful story between father and daughter.

In Guaporé , Eurico Cabral invites the reader to immerse themselves in the sertanejo forest and its stories of intertwined, intertwined voices. Through a narrative that flows in continuous alternation, the characters who, in one way or another, surround the tragic story of Tião and Luz, the central core of the novel, are gradually revealed.

Tião is a migrant from Piauí who, after a malnourished childhood, arrives in the Mato Grosso backlands to work as a cowboy. His family, sent to take care of a secluded ranch, the Retiro do Rio Verde, nestled between the forest and the Guaporé River, becomes increasingly dissatisfied with their life in exile, except for Luz, their youngest daughter. His wife, Zeferina, and their son, Leovirson, eventually abandon that remote place, leaving the father and daughter alone, surrounded by trees and animals, in their tender, supportive, and complicit relationship, until a succession of morally complex, tragic, and conflicting developments shatters the tranquility of their family life. The story of the father, Sebastião Nonato, and his daughter, Leidiluz da Ora Nonato, however, is not what one would expect from a tragic novel—one with a painful, inescapable, and, above all, unique ending. In a tangle of dreams, mysteries and visions, two possible and, at the same time, impossible versions are presented for the reader to choose.

From Piauí to the banks of the Guaporé River, Eurico Cabral's narrative delves into the dilemmas of lives marked by poverty, drought, modern slavery, and its inseparable violence—exploitation, rape, murder, and suicide. While navigating difficult themes and everyday and geographical brutality, Guaporé 's lyrical language also draws on the most beautiful natural enchantments, aligning itself with literary traditions that dedicate reverential treatment to the landscape, to "naturalness," and to every living being that inhabits the country's far reaches.