In 1956, Brazilian author Joao Guimaraes Rosa published what would become his magnum opus, Grande Sertao: Veredas. South American literary critics were astounded by this ground-breaking ode to the backlands of Brazil, declaring it the Brazilian Ulysses. Guimaraes Rosa’s astounding work would take the Latin American literary world by storm. Originally translated as The Devil to Pay in the Backlands in 1963, Vastlands is a single sweeping retrospective monologue from the point of view of Riobaldo, a former jagunco – a mercenary or bandit – recounting his life in the backlands of inland Brazil. Raised in poverty by a single mother, Riobaldo receives a basic education before forging his own path within the deeply embedded machismo of the backlands, buoyed by his incredible military abilities and sheer tenacity. His story is a twisting narrative of fraught longing and the flux of power in a lawless state, of old feuds and new betrayals, exiles, Faustian pacts and precarious hierarchy. Now, over sixty years since its only English translation and seventy years since its initial publication in Portuguese, multi-award-winning literary translator Alison Entrekin renders Guimaraes Rosa’s feat of linguistic engineering in kaleidoscopic prose, offering the key to this beloved yet often-overlooked masterpiece to a new generation of readers.
