Brazil Red

In 1555 a French expedition sails to found a colony, France Antarctique, on the still untamed bay that the Portuguese have named Rio de Janeiro, a coast of jungle and cannibals. Its leader is the knight Villegagnon, a man steeped in the classics who longs for the age of the crusades and means to plant France on the continent with a fort. Two children, Just and Colombe, have been carried off against their will to learn the native languages and act as go-betweens with the tribes, and they grow up fast in the New World. Inside the isolated colony, quarrels over religion foreshadow the wars about to tear France apart. Through the two children, the novel sets a conquering Europe, which claims to free people yet kills, against an Indian world that is cruel and sensual and attuned to the sacred.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

550 pages in the original

Genres

Historical (assigned by AI)

Set in

Brazil, 16th century

First published

2001 by Gallimard

Author's age

49 when first published

ISBN

9782070761982 (original)

9780393052077 (W. W. Norton, United States)

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Wikidata