Mad Maria

Mad Maria , Márcio Souza's masterpiece, has a new edition with a new cover and graphic design.

Written in 1980, Mad Maria is the second book by Márcio Souza, novelist, playwright and theater director, and was adapted for television in a miniseries by Rede Globo in 2003.

The story takes place in the Amazonian hinterland and chronicles the construction of the Madeira-Mamoré railway between 1907 and 1912. At the time, investors aimed to build a road that could rival the Panama Canal. The railway would connect a latex-rich region in Bolivia with the Amazon, but along the way, it would encounter enormous obstacles: numerous waterfalls, miles and miles of swamps and canyons, hundreds of snakes and scorpions, gigantic trees, and countless malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Before construction was completed, some three thousand men were dead, thousands hospitalized, and a fortune in dollars wasted in the jungle.

In Mad Maria, Márcio Souza weaves a Brazilian western and forces the reader to delve into the most terrible and unimaginable historical episodes of the construction of the Madeira-Mamoré railway.

In his review for Le Monde , also a blurb for this edition, Jacques Meunier writes: " Mad Maria is a novel without complacency, a proletarian Iliad where the gods are replaced by corrupt politicians. Robber Americans. Merciless bosses. And it would be wrong to accuse Márcio Souza of Manichaeism: none of his characters redeems the other. Finnegan, the most confident, the most idealistic, the most fraternal, will end up in the shoes of a murderer. Such are the things in an Amazon that should inspire cohesion and solidarity, but which exacerbates selfishness, multiplies susceptibilities and conflicts, and sacrifices the best for the worst..."

“Márcio Souza’s bitter irony springs straight from the heart of darkness.” – The New York Times Book Review

"An epic in reverse, a remarkable novel by Márcio Souza, increasingly a master of his craft and brimming with talent. Mad Maria is a Brazilian-style Western: without illusions, vigilant, and sharp as an arrow in the dark night." – Jefferson Del Rios, Folha de S. Paulo

“By choosing the most macabre and unbelievable episodes from the historical records of the five years of railroad construction and concentrating them into three nightmarish months, Márcio Souza forces the reader—at this point almost another character tangled in vegetation—to confront that hell.” – Ariel Dorfman, Vice