Samba Dreamers

Cover by TJ Pierce

Series Title: Camino del Sol

ISBN: 0816524904
University of Arizona Press
Paperback, $17.95 (320p)

To order, contact:
The University of Arizona Press
355 S. Euclid Avenue, Suite 103
Tucson, AZ 85719
www.uapress.arizona.edu

Holly Dolan, Publicity Manager
Phone: (520) 621-3920
Fax: (520) 621-8899
hdolan@uapress.arizona.edu

Purchase a copy.

Catalog description

2007 Pen/Oakland Josephine Miles Award
2007 Northern California Book Award Nominee
2006 USA Book News Best Books Award Finalist

Samba Dreamers

The Brazil of the imagination is shattered in this novel of two tortured souls wrestling with the myths of movies, politics and the American Dream. Laced with fantastic tales of bird-boys, Amazons, and lost conquistadors, it spins a compelling story of desperation as it reminds us that American freedom and the myth of unbridled opportunity can also consume and destroy.

"Samba Dreamers is a brilliant debut and addition to the Latino literary cannon. ...I couldn't put it down."

---Virgil Suarez, In the Republic of Longing

"How could I not love an Amazonian ex-con fighting the image of her mother the famous Brazilianstar Carmen Socorro?"

---Kathleen Alcalá, The Flowers in the Skull

Reviews:

"Azevedo's portrayal of life in exile and her representation of a broad spectrum of immigrant issues are sophisticated and convincing. . ."

--- Women's Review of Books, March/April 2007
Read entire review

"It’s hard to believe this is the author’s first novel. . . She creates these two very human characters that we would gladly follow from here to Brazil.
-- www.latinostories.com May 2007 Read entire review.

" Like samba music, de Azevedo’s novel is melancholy, energetic, and fun."

-- Multicultural Review 12/2006 Read entire review

"Samba Dreamers" is a dark, fantastical and, indeed, brilliant cautionary tale .... If Nathanael West had been Brazilian,
"The Day of the Locust" would have looked a lot like "Samba Dreamers." ..... a remarkable new literary voice."

----El Paso Times 7/6/06 Read entire review

"...... richly drawn characters and an imaginative plot that is as exciting as a wild carnaval parade."

---- Tucson Citizen 3/16/06 Read entire review

"De Azevedo takes them from one-dimensional stereotypes to three-dimensional beings, revealing the angst, terror and com-
plexity of people seen by society only as a problem...

              ----Américas Nov/Dec. 2006 Read entire review

"De Azevedo's vibrant debut novel creates a world through the strange intersection of Hollywood fantasy and real-world cultural exchange . . ."

                     ---Publishers Weekly   1/2/06 Read entire review

To read the opening pages, click here.
To read a synopsis, click here.