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    The Viceroy of Ouidah

    Author Bruce Chatwin
    Paperback
    $22.00 US
    Penguin Adult HC/TR | Penguin Books
    On sale Jun 07, 1988 | 160 Pages | 9780140112900
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    Bruce Chatwin’s debut novel:  “Conrad’s Heart of Darkness seen through a microscope” (The Atlantic)

    In this vivid, powerful novel, Chatwin tells of Francisco Manoel de Silva, a poor Brazilian adventurer who sails to Dahomey in West Africa to trade for slaves and amass his fortune. His plans exceed his dreams, and soon he is the Viceroy of Ouidah, master of all slave trading in Dahomey. But the ghastly business of slave trading and the open savagery of life in Dahomey slowly consume Manoel's wealth and sanity.
    Bruce Chatwin reinvented British travel writing with his first book, and followed it with four other books, each unique and extraordinary. He died in 1989. View titles by Bruce Chatwin
    "Dazzles and mystifies, with its lush anger, its impacted memory, its gorgeous desolation."
    --The New York Times

    "A vivid, lush, seductive book that absolutely captures the look and light and life of the Brazilian wastelands and the hot, breathless African Slave Coast jungles. What an imagination Bruce Chatwin has!"--The Wall Street Journal

    "Chatwin has a powerfully visual and aural style; sights and sounds crowd his sentences to the point that the book almost breathes."--The New Yorker

    "Chatwin's book is both a luminous historical document and an exploitation of the surreal past. The author's talent for invoking history's black magic is evident."--Time 

    About

    Bruce Chatwin’s debut novel:  “Conrad’s Heart of Darkness seen through a microscope” (The Atlantic)

    In this vivid, powerful novel, Chatwin tells of Francisco Manoel de Silva, a poor Brazilian adventurer who sails to Dahomey in West Africa to trade for slaves and amass his fortune. His plans exceed his dreams, and soon he is the Viceroy of Ouidah, master of all slave trading in Dahomey. But the ghastly business of slave trading and the open savagery of life in Dahomey slowly consume Manoel's wealth and sanity.

    Author

    Bruce Chatwin reinvented British travel writing with his first book, and followed it with four other books, each unique and extraordinary. He died in 1989. View titles by Bruce Chatwin

    Praise

    "Dazzles and mystifies, with its lush anger, its impacted memory, its gorgeous desolation."
    --The New York Times

    "A vivid, lush, seductive book that absolutely captures the look and light and life of the Brazilian wastelands and the hot, breathless African Slave Coast jungles. What an imagination Bruce Chatwin has!"--The Wall Street Journal

    "Chatwin has a powerfully visual and aural style; sights and sounds crowd his sentences to the point that the book almost breathes."--The New Yorker

    "Chatwin's book is both a luminous historical document and an exploitation of the surreal past. The author's talent for invoking history's black magic is evident."--Time 

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