Orphans of Eldorado — Milton Hatoum

This reimagining of the Amazon's greatest legend by the prize-winning Brazilian author of The Brothers “does what every good telling of a myth should” (Financial Times).

The setting for this 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, Brazil's capitol city in the Amazon Basin, and it is here that Arminto Cordovil lives with his father Amando in a white mansion.

Theirs relationship is full of fury 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 an “unnerving and otherworldly” fable of love, family, longing, and despair. “Somewhere in the vivid descriptions of the rich Amazonian landscape, and amongst the complex life story of the protagonist, the reader becomes enchanted by the mysteries of the text” (The Skinny, UK).

“A tough and gifted novelist.” -- A.S. Byatt