''Showdown'' (

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

: ''Tocaia Grande'') is a Brazilian

Modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

novel. It was written by

Jorge Amado Jorge Leal Amado de Faria (10 August 1912 – 6 August 2001) was a Brazilian writer of the modernist school. He remains the best known of modern Brazilian writers, with his work having been translated into some 49 languages and popularized in ...

in 1984.

Plot

The novel deals with the foundation of a community, ''Tocaia Grande'' ("big ambush" in Portuguese), in a fertile agricultural zone in the state of

Bahia Bahia ( , , ; meaning "bay") is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro) and the 5th-largest b ...

. The ambush referred to in the title is carried out by Natario de Fonseca, a

jagunço A Jagunço (), from the Portuguese ''zarguncho'' (a weapon of African origin, similar to a short lance or ''chuzo''), is an armed hand or bodyguard, usually hired by plantation owners and "colonels" in the backlands of Brazil, especially in Nort ...

in the service of a plantation owner, Colonel Boaventura. Twenty gunfighters assembled by the latter's only political rival are killed, effectively destroying the opponent. Natario fell in love with the location of the ambush and resolved to establish a community there. The novel is really about the growth of the village and the petty criminals, runaway servants and prostitutes who drift in and out. Tocaia Grande only really begins to expand, however, when a family, cheated of its land by a colonel in

Sergipe Sergipe (), officially State of Sergipe, is a state of Brazil. Located in the Northeast Region along the Atlantic coast of the country, Sergipe is the smallest state in Brazil by geographical area at , larger only than the Federal District. Serg ...

, arrives and begins to plant food crops. Their arrival initiates a colourful blending of

n traditions with those of the original inhabitants. The reference to families migrating after being thrown off their land mirrors the central theme of an earlier work by Amado, Red Field. Bandits attack the settlement and are driven off by prostitutes; a flood almost destroys the town; fever kills many. But its final destruction comes because it has remained outside the law as a sort of early anarchist community, with all decisions emerging by unofficial consensus. When the authorities finally decide that they want to control it Tocaia Grande is doomed. The son of Colonel Boaventura, who fell out with Natario because the latter would not work for him after his father's death, sets out to seize the ground with the approval of the state authorities. The story of Tocaia Grande begins and ends in massacre, but not without one final twist. In ''Showdown'', Amado returns to some of his earliest concerns, confronting the historical criminality of Brazilian society, and aiming to show how Brazil has buried its (criminal) past. In fact ''Showdown'' is almost an historical continuation of Amado’s novel ''

The Violent Land ''The Violent Land'' (Portuguese: ''Terras do Sem Fim'') is a Brazilian Modernist novel written by Jorge Amado in 1943 and published in English in 1945. It describes the battles to develop cacao plantations in the forests of the Bahia state of ...

'', first published in 1943. It contains several references to the battles between cacao landowners described in that earlier novel. In addition to Natario, important characters are a Lebanese immigrant, Fadul, owner of the general store - renowned for his stubbornness and physical strength; Castor de Abduim, a handsome blacksmith, whose companion Diva dies in a cholera outbreak; and Bernarda, a young prostitute who becomes Natario's lover.

References

1984 novels Novels by Jorge Amado Modernist novels Brazilian novels Portuguese-language novels Novels set in Brazil {{1980s-novel-stub