If periods of time can ever have national identities, 2014 is turning out to be my year of South American literature. Starting with the Good Offices, a satire on the Colombian Catholic Church by Evelio Rosero, through the recently released At Night We Dance in Circles by the talented Peruvian  Daniel ALarcon (review to appear here shortly) and most recently His Own Man by Brazilian Edgard Telles Ribeiro.  His Own Man is the story of ambitious Brazilian diplomat Marcilio Andrade Xavier, generally known as Max, slowly revealed through the retrospective observations of a colleague he first met in Rio de Janiero in 1968 at Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Pieced together over the decades, each fragment reveals Max’s transition from confident, ambitious newcomer to consummate player in an international game that sees democracies brutally toppling across South America – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay:- a web of clandestine interference and manipulation supported by the shadowy sinews of the American CIA and the British M15.

The impact is devastating. Terror becomes the official currency: fear and intimidation, torture and murder, the political weapon of choice. The military, politicians and business leaders make up the rules of the game and are the prime beneficiaries. Those who rebel are silenced with production line efficiency. Others learn to

• 0
• 0
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
• 0