In a few words
A magical retelling of the myth of Eldorado, the Enchanted City of the Amazon, by one of Brazil’s most acclaimed writers
The story is universal, though sensuously anchored in Manaus, gripping in both its particular twists and its tragic inevitability, it is a human story told in a world made real by a very good writer
A.s. Byatt On Hatoum's The Brothers
A profoundly textured work that is sophisticated, elegant, unusually vivid and intriguingly convincing.
Irish Times On Hatoum's Tale Of A Certain Orient
More about
the book
The setting for this magical fable is Eldorado, the Enchanted city that inhabited the fevered dreams of European navigators and conquistadors, but eluded all attempts to find it on the map. Some have linked it to Manaus in the Amazon Basin, and it is here that Arminto Cordovil lives with his father Amando in a white mansion.
Theirs is a relationship full of passion and limitless ambition. Separating father and son is a remarkable cast of characters, from Angelina, the dead mother, to Denisio, the infernal boatman, and at the centre, Dinaura, a girl who betwitches Arminto and dreams of Eldorado…
Orphans of Eldorado is a rich and magical fable that beautifully captures the atmosphere of the steamy, lush Amazonian world.
Clear in each particular but tantalisingly elusive in its overall meaning, Orphans of Eldorado does what every good telling of a myth should.
Adrian Turpin
Financial TimesDelicately crafted and dreamlike.
