Book

Gabriela Cravo e Canela (Gabriela Clove and Cinnamon) is a novel written by Jorge Amado, published in 1958. It is one of Amado's most popular novels that represents a moment of change in the literary production of the author, for describing the “way of being of the Brazilian”.

Who was Jorge Amado?

Jorge Leal Amado de Faria was a Brazilian author and one of the most popular writers of the 20th century.

Amado was born in 1912 in Itabuna, southern Bahia - the place where many of his novels take place. His father was a cocoa farmer (a constant theme of Amado’s work).

At 19 years old he wrote his first novel O País do Carnaval(Carnival's Country) and in 1933 published his second book: Cacau (Cocoa). His first works had a regional character and strong critics of current social situations which he exposed by depicting the daily life in Salvador. It was this style of writing that gave him his controversial reputation, which was established after the publishing of Capitães da Areia (Captains of the Sand)- a book that became extremely polemic and forbidden in both dictatorial regimes of Portugal and of Brazil.

Amado was a supporter of socialist ideas, and for that matter, he went to prison twice in 1936 and 1937 and was later on exiled. In 1939 he married the writer Zélia Gattai that reviewed his works and photographed meaningful moments of the writer’s life.

With the change of political regime, he returns to Brazil, and later with works translated to many idioms, he receives several prizes and honorific titles. Many of his works were later adapted to TV, cinema and theatre such is the case of the book here exhibited Gabriela Cravo e Canela.

Gabriela Cravo e Canela - Narrative

Previous to 1958, the year Gabriela Cravo e Canela was published, books that represented social worries and male main characters were more predominant. The book Gabriela however came to be very much unlike these. Gabriela is instead a chronicle of customs defined by popular powerful figures and sensual women.

Amado narrates a love story between Gabriela, a dark-skinned brunette woman "made out of clove and cinnamon" and Nacib, a man of Arabic origins whose love challenges the customs of that time.

This story takes place in 1925, in Ilheus, an interior city of the south of Bahia, that is suddenly transformed by the growth in cocoa plantations. Amado focuses on this city at a moment of political and economic transformation, and in it develops this narrative where he describes two political groups interested in defending the city according to their own disparate interests: the coroneis (“coronels”) that represent a local oligarchy, conservative, and powerful, that intended to maintain that same power contained in the monopoly of cocoa plantations; and the opposition group, represented by the middle class interested in installing a new political order.

The narrative starts when Nacib, in need of a new cook, finds Gabriela coming from a different region and arriving dirty, mistreated and dressed in rags to the slave market of the city. Nacib employs her and is surprised by her qualities that go beyond her culinary skills. It does not take long until Nacib falls in love with how free, beautiful and sensual Gabriela is and later will also notice the hold she has on everyone's attention. Jealousy, breakups and plot twists will take on this immersive narrative filled with picturesque situations.

It is in this context that Amado represents characters male and female alike, and most of all Gabriela - one of the most admired characters of Brazilian literature.

First Edition (1958)

The first edition of this book will be under analysis for it was the one that suffered the most controversy and banishes. Published in 1958, this book marks a new stage in the intellectual production of the author. It was first published in Sao Paulo by Livraria Martins, and although not censured in Brazil, it was censured in Portugal and other countries still associated with it due to past colonialism (Angola, Mozambique,..).

The cover of this first edition of Gabriela is from the authorship of Clovis Graciano and it was first produced in paperback, with illustrations in a melancholic yet tropical colour scheme.

The majority of its illustrations are contained within a central rectangle divided into 3 layers, like a superposition that is telling the reader the priority and order of visual interpretation. In the first plan we see a man and woman looking at each other - people of light skin, straight hair, dressed in dark colours. In a second layer, we see on the left side, in a smaller size, a woman at a window. This one is more roughly drawn to better portray its distance from the couple. She is dressed in a white dress, more open and less discrete than the woman in the first plan. In a third plan, we see a water stream, perhaps the sea and a port limiting the horizon. Above the water stream, the image of houses in grey, green, red and white.

Around the title and author's name we see singled-out houses and below the illustration we see the genre of the book “Romance” (Novel) and the name of the editor “Livraria Martins”, all atop a cream- pale yellow background.

The cover is not only meant to characterize the narrative of Amado but also of its characters and the coastal city of Ilheus, as well as the historical and social events that were happening at the time of its publishing. The thematic and the cover of the book were up-to-date and could for that reason appeal to the reader.

Sources

Priscila Nayade Moraes Lima, “Paisagem de uma cidade cacaueira com mulher ao centro - Gabriela, cravo e canela como romance histórico” (Environment of cocoa plantations within a city with the woman at the center - Gabriela Clove and Cinnamon as a historic novel), Final Thesis (2014), accessed 14th November, 2020, https://bdm.unb.br/bitstream/10483/8692/1/2014_PriscilaNayadeMoraesLima%20.pdf

Sônia Regina de Araújo Caldas, Gabriela, bahiana de todas as cores: as imagens das capas e suas influências culturais (Gabriela from a colourful Bahia: the colours of its covers and cultural influences), SciELO – EDUFBA Online(2009), accessed 14th November, 2020, https://archive.org/details/9788523209339/page/n7/mode/2up