Destination: Brazil

Travel Literature

A Death in Brazil by Peter Robb is one of the most fascinating travelogues published in recent years (2004). Robb, who spent 20 years in Brazil, explores four centuries of Brazilian history, while detailing his own modern-day travels, creating a compelling portrait of the country.

Travelers' Tales Brazil, edited by Scott Doggett and Annette Haddad, is a fine anthology of tales of travel and life in Brazil. The excellent 2nd edition (published 2004) includes contributions from writers such as Diane Ackerman, Joe Kane, Petru Popescu and Alma Guillermoprieto.

How to Be a Carioca by Priscilla Ann Goslin is highly recommended for anyone planning to spend time in Rio de Janeiro. Her tongue-in-cheek descriptions of the Carioca (Rio dweller) lifestyle are spot-on. Don't miss the hilarious 'essential vocabulary' section for mastering the local lingo.

Peter Fleming's Brazilian Adventure is about the young journalist's expedition into Mato Grosso in the 1930s - a wild region then - in search of vanished explorer Colonel Fawcett. What Fleming found is less important than the telling, written with wry humor.

Although not specifically about Brazil, Redmond O'Hanlon's hilarious In Trouble Again: a Journey Between the Orinoco and the Amazon tells of his fretful journey through Latin America.

Also not solely about Brazil is Peter Matthiessen's The Cloud Forest, an account of a 30,000km journey across the South American wilderness from the Amazon to Tierra del Fuego. It's well worth a read.

Moritz Thomsen's The Saddest Pleasure: a Journey on Two Rivers is an engaging book about the author's experiences in South America, including journeys through Brazil and along the Amazon.

Running the Amazon by Joe Kane is the story of the 10 men and one woman who, in 1986, became the first expedition to cover the entire length of the Rio Amazonas (Amazon River), from the Andes to the Atlantic, on foot and in rafts and kayaks.