Sand Captains (also Sand Captains, Portuguese: Capitães da Areia ) is a 1937 novel by Brazilian writer Jorge Amadou . This is one of the writer's early novels, written when he was 25 years old, and at the same time one of the most famous (and beloved in Brazil ) of his works. It is part of the “Bahian cycle” of novels that tell about the life of the poor in the Brazilian state of Bahia in the 1930s and 1940s.
| Sand captains | |
|---|---|
| Capitães da areia | |
| Genre | |
| Author | |
| Original language | Portuguese |
| Date of writing | |
| Date of first publication | |
Content
- 1 plot
- 2 Critical Assessment
- 3 Russian translations
- 4 Screen versions
- 5 notes
- 6 Main editions in Russian
- 7 References
Story
The action takes place in Bahia in the 1930s. The novel tells the story of a gang of street kids called the “sand captains” because the sandy beaches of the harbor became their headquarters:
What did they have? - Only unlimited freedom, only the streets and beaches of this city, where they did not always have an easy life, getting food and clothing in every possible way: they brought suitcases, stole wallets and hats. Sometimes they robbed, sometimes they asked alms.
In total, the gang totaled more than a hundred people aged 8 to 16 years. The main characters of the novel are the boys Pedro Bullet (15-year-old leader of the gang), Joan Long, Professor, Lame, Net, Cat, Deadwood, Wick, Busotere and their adult friends Priest Jose Pedro, port worker-striker Joan de Adam, capoeirist of God Pet, priestess of the cult of Candomblé Don'Aninha.
The first part of “Under the Moon, in an Old Abandoned Warehouse” tells about what led the main characters to the ranks of “sand captains” and about various episodes from the life of the gang: about daring robberies and helping friends in the fight against police officers.
In the second part, “The Night of Great Rest of Your Eyes,” the 13-year-old Dora and her younger brother, whose parents died, enter the gang. Dora becomes a sister and mother for the “sand captains,” and for Pedro Puli, she also becomes a bride. However, during one of the robberies, she and Pedro Bul were caught by the police. Pedro manages to escape from the penal colony, “captains” steal Dora from an orphanage, but there Dora becomes ill with a fever and soon dies in the shelter of “sand captains”.
The third part of Bahia’s Song, Song of Freedom tells the story of the fate of gang members for several years after Dora’s death. The professor becomes an artist whose paintings about the life of the poor shocked the whole country. The wick becomes a monk, which he dreamed of after meeting with Padre Jose Pedro. The lame man dies during one of the attacks, Sachok becomes a city tramp, Cote a large speculator, Deadman enters the gang of the "noble robber" Lampian and fights with the police, Joan Long goes on a voyage on a ship. But not one of these roads is suitable for Pedro Pula — he is “called by the Revolution”, he wants to change the fate of all the poor and joins the Communist Party , and from the “captains of sand” he creates an assault brigade that helps workers during strikes and strikes.
Critical Assessment
"Captains of the Sand" (1937) marked a new stage in the artistic search for Amadou. It would seem that, compared with the Dead Sea, folklore motifs here somewhat recede into the background, go into subtext. But the closeness and merciless truthfulness with which the fate of a group of Bayan street children is considered in the novel resembles the sociological protocol of Amadou's first books - Cocoa and Pot. The life of these impoverished teenagers appears before us in all details, sometimes funny, sometimes roughly repulsive. Amadou clearly indicates the racial and social characteristics of each member of the group. He seeks extreme accuracy in the transmission of characters' speech, not being afraid to shock the reader. Nevertheless, this element of hard documentary is firmly fused in the novel with another element - folk-poetic. In the wretched life of the heroes of Amadou, poetry is invariably present. “Captains of sand”, “dressed in rags, dirty, hungry, aggressive, strewing obscenities and hunting for cigarette butts, were the real masters of the city: they knew him to the end, they loved him to the end, they were his poets” - this is the author’s comment, playing an important role in the artistic whole of the novel.
Source: I. Terteryan. World J. Amadou // J. Amadou. Collected works in 3 volumes. M., 1986.V.1. S. 5-26.
Russian translations
In 1951, Jorge Amadou's public activity was awarded the Stalin International Prize for Outstanding Service in the Struggle to Consolidate and Preserve Peace. Apparently, the first translation of an excerpt from the novel into Russian, which appeared in the magazine “In Defense of the World” in 1952 under the heading “Sand Captains” (the name of the translator is not indicated, and the translation was probably made with Spanish version).
A new translation by Y. Kalugin was published in The Young Guard for 1976 (a magazine version, reduced by about half), apparently, was caused by the huge success of the film “ Generals of Sand Quarries ” by Hall Bartlett , which was released in the USSR in 1974. The novel did not cause much interest.
On the occasion of the 75th birthday of Georges Amadou , a three-volume writer in Russian was published in 1987, which included Sand Captains translated by A. Bogdanovsky .
In 2000, a new full translation of the novel by E. Belyakova was published.
Since the 1990s, the novel (in various translations) began to appear under the title “Generals of the sand pits,” apparently so that the reader could more easily associate it with the film.
Screen versions, productions
In 1971, the film " Generals of the Sand Quarries ", which became a cult in the USSR, was shot in the USA based on the novel. In honor of this movie, a colloquial novel is sometimes called the same.
The novel was twice filmed in Brazil . In 1989, the television series of 10 episodes was released, directed by Walter Lima [1] . In 2011, on the centenary of the birth of Jorge Amadou, another adaptation of the novel “ Captains of Sand ” was shot, directed by Cecilia Amadou (granddaughter of Jorge Amadou) and cameraman Gai Goncalves [2] [3] .
The novel was staged in Russia by the Moscow Youth Theater, directed by Vyacheslav Spesivtsev [4] and the Altai Drama Theater named after Shukshin .
Notes
- ↑ Capitaes da Areia on the Internet Movie Database
- ↑ Capitaes da Areia on the Internet Movie Database
- ↑ Captains of sand / Capitaes da areia . www.buenolatina.ru. Date of treatment June 16, 2019.
- ↑ About the Moscow play “Captains of Sand” see:
Major Publications in Russian
- Georges Amadou Sand Captains // In Defense of the World. 1952. No. 18. S. 69-80.
- Georges Amadou Sand Captains // Young Guard. 1976. No. 10. S. 3-110; No. 11. S. 107-160.
- Georges Amadou Dead Sea. Captains of sand. M., 1992 .-- 476 p.
- Georges Amadou The Sandpit Generals. SPb. 1994.S. 5-276.
- Georges Amadou Sand Captains. Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix, 2000 .-- 316 p.
- Georges Amadou Captains of sand. Shop of miracles. Moscow: Eksmo-Press, 2002 .-- 608 p.