Palmares

Almeyda, an enslaved girl in colonial Brazil, learns her letters from a priest and grows up curious about everyone around her, including the grandmother whom others think irrational. Sold from one plantation to the next, she meets European visitors, among them a lexicographer at work on a Portuguese dictionary, and Black and Indigenous Brazilians, free and enslaved. She marries Anninho, a Muslim, and goes with him to Palmares, a real settlement of people who had escaped slavery. When war destroys it and they are separated, she sets off across the colony in search of him and of a new Palmares, passing a village whose god is said to dwell in a cave and a healer whose magic exacts a terrible price. The story covers about a quarter of a century.

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About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Historical (assigned by AI)

Set in

Brazil, 17th century

First published

2021

Author's age

72 when first published

ISBN

9780349015262 (Virago, United Kingdom)

9780807033494 (Beacon Press, United States)

9780349015248 (Virago, United Kingdom)

9780807007150 (Beacon Press, United States)

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Wikidata