"The Centaur in the Garden" is a superb novel by Brazilian writer Moacyr Scliar. The text has been translated from Portuguese into English by Margaret A. Neves. This brilliant fantasy describes the life of Guedali Tartakovsky, who is born to a Russian Jewish family that has emigrated to Brazil. The family is shocked when, at the baby's birth, they discover that he is a centaur: a being who is human from the waist up, but who possesses a horse's four-legged body below.

The novel's hero thus enters the world marked as an outsider. As his life unfolds, we see his quest to educate himself, to embrace his Jewish identity, to experience sex, to find love, and ultimately to determine his place in the world. Along the way are many stunning surprises--for both Guedali and the reader.

"Centaur" seems to me to exemplify the concept of "magical realism." The book deftly blends elements of fantasy, science fiction, and social satire. Scliar explores many types of relationship: between European and Native American, Jew and Gentile, man and woman, parent and child. This is a deeply moving, truly brilliant novel by one of the most extraordinary voices in Latin American literature.

The story is about a person who is born as a centaur. It may seem foolish and nonsense, but it isn't. The book deals with the problems any "human being" half hoarse would sufer. Telling you more of the story would take the enjoyment out.

It is great: the reader will imidiatively see that he is a centaur himself. How? The society demands us to be padronized, identical with each other, but we just can't and shouldn't! We are different, no matter how we try being as our neighbor, in other words, each of us are centaurs in same way. We must have our diferencies (unfortunetlty, some people want to be the same as the "majority", the so called "normal people"). That's the meaning of the book.

(You americans should try reading books from authors of my country. Then you'll find out how rich and great our literature is.)

What a book. That's one of those books that keep you turning the pages rapidly, until you get to the end. But then you just have to take another look at the first pages, and before you know it you are in the middle of a second round. The main character tells his story retrospectively, starting from the night a winged horse flew over his parents house at the time of his birth - a Jewish Centaur somewhere in Brazil. His parents are terrified at first, but afterwards he is grown as a regular... well, centaur. It's no use even trying to tell anything of this strange, fascinating book. Two things, however, are certain: this is a book that you will be thinking about for a long, long time, and this is NOT a children's book. Read it. If I can't convince you... well, imagine yourself living your life without knowing that "One hundred years of solitude" existed. What a loss.

"The Ballad of the False Messiah" is a collection of short fiction by Moacyr Scliar, the great Jewish writer of Brazil. "Ballad" contains 9 short stories and a longer piece which could be considered a novelette. The book has been translated from Portuguese into English by Eloah F. Giacomelli.

The stories in this book contain elements of the absurd and the fantastic. The title story involves a Russian Jewish immigrant community in Brazil--a community which may have found its messiah. "The Scalp" is a creepy tale of vanity and violence. And "The Offerings of the Dalila Store" is an odd exploration of lust and commerce.

The real masterpiece in this collection is the novelette entitled "The Short-Story Writers." This is a brilliant "metafiction" about a short story writer who is writing a short story entitled "The Short-Story Writers." The narrator documents the quirks and struggles of his fellow short story writers. This is a delightful piece, full of jokes and weirdness. Like the film "Being John Malkovich," this long story takes a playfully surreal approach to exploring the role of the artist in society.

This collection has been reprinted in its entirety in "The Collected Stories of Moacyr Scliar," together with more than 100 other pieces. Scliar is one of the most magical voices in Latin American literature, and his stories deserve a wide audience.

This is available in the Collected Stories of Moacyr Scliar. You will the Collected Stories wonderful reading.

This book collects The Carnival of Animals, The Ballad of the False Messiah and The Enigmatic Eye which all are out of print in their English editions with The Tremulous Dwarf, the Dwarf in the Television Set and Van Gogh's Ear which have not to my knowledge been previously available in English. The fact that I would award Moacyr Scliar a Nobel Prize for literature in itself explains why 400 pages of his short stories is just right.

Scliar is a versatile author - Jewish and Brazilean - with a breadth of knowledge of history, medicine, psychology, anthropology and Hebrew scripture that both root his stories in the concrete and give them a universal understanding. He is comfortable in allegory, fantasy, magical realism.

All the traits of his better known novels - The Strange Nation of Rafael Mendes and Centaur in the Garden - are here in minature.

Given my interests, I particularly enjoyed the retelling of the ten plagues of Egypt from the perspective not of the Hebrews but of the Egyptians. However, were I to list all my favorites and explain why I'd exceed the Amazon word limit!

If you aren't up to this thick volume, read Centaur in the Garden ... then you'll want 400 pages more of his masterful writing.

In this superb anthology of six of his short story collections, Moacyr Scliar presents readers with a panoply of themes, such as persecution, exploitation, and how ideologies mold our lives. Many of these themes reflect the times during which Scliar wrote -- a time when literary and other forms of cultural expresson were being surpressed under Brazil's military regime. In the first collection of stories, "The Carnival of Animals," Scliar uses allegory to explore the theme of persecution and exploitation, amongst other things.In his story, "The Cow," Scliar writes of a sailor who, shipwrecked with only a cow for company, comes to rely on that cow for his very survival. Like the loving, maternal tree in the classic, "The Giving Tree," the cow, named Carola, provides the sailor with food, clothing, fuel -- everything.The sailor readily exploits the cow --and ultimately destroys her to save his own life. But though he survives and prospers, the sailor lives a sad, empty life. Thus we are given a brief, anecdotal allegory of how exploitation dooms both the victim and the exploiter. Scliar, a Jew, also writes of Jewish themes, some of which are included in this collection. For example, The Ballad of the False Messiah is an allegory about the Jewish quest for redemption vis a vis a messiah -- and the ultimate futility of that quest. Casting the notorious, historical "false messiah," Shabtai Zvi, as one of his main characters,Scliar uses humor and irony to develop the theme that candidates for the Jewish messiah may come and go, but the Jewish people, with a messiah or without, will prevail. In "The Plagues" readers have an opportunity to see how "the other side fared" during biblical times when God smote the Egyptians with 10 plagues. Here we read of the tribulations of an average, Egyptian family that is arbitrarily being punished for the stubborness of the Pharaoh not to "let the Hebrews go." Again we have allegory, irony, and a true literary gem. Scliar uses biblical parables and elements of that particularly Latin American genre, magical realism, to entertain,enthrall, and enlighten. A wonderful anthology.

Out of any doubt, one of the best latinoamerican novel. It`s beutiful, unforgetable, merely a big pleasure read this master piece. Politics, Poetry, Sex, brasilian landscape, an many another subjects are here. You wont regret of buying this book.
Jorge Amado`s reading is a kind of happiness.

This was the first Amado book I read and it is problably the best to start with. The book combines both political commentary, comedy and sex in a way that you will be glued to the book from beginning to end. Also a feature of this book which makes it extra interesting is how the author stops the book and talks to you, it is as if he were right in front of you. It makes the books so personal and even better. If you like this book or Jorge Amado, please email me.

The Enigmatic Eye is available in the Collected Stories of Moacyr Scliar. You will find the entire collection well worth your time.

"Max and the Cats" is a surreal comic novel by Moacyr Scliar, a great writer from Brazil. "Max" has been translated from Portuguese into English by Eloah F. Giacomelli (who also translated Scliar's monumental "Collected Stories"). "Max" tells the story of Max Schmidt, who is born in Germany in 1912, the son of a furrier. The novel tells of Max's coming of age and his emigration to Brazil.

Max's life story is structured around his encounters with three big felines: a stuffed tiger in his father's shop, a jaguar, and an onca (a Brazilian wildcat). I don't want to reveal too much about the novel's quirky plot. I will just say that Max gets into many remarkable situations: comic, frightening, erotic, and/or absurd.

Much of the story takes place under the specter of World War II and the Nazis, and other elements of the novel tap into the myth of the Americas as a new world of opportunity. Scliar also refers more than once to the work of Jose de Alencar, the 19th century Brazilian writer who created a romantic, idealized portrait of the relationship between Native Americans and Europeans. Scliar seems to be ironically commenting on the work of this literary predecessor.

"Max and the Cats" is a weird, wonderful triumph for Moacyr Scliar. Combining elements of mystery, realism, and the fantastic, this novel is an excellent example of Scliar's uniquely delightful voice.

"The Gods of Raquel" is a novel by Moacyr Scliar, the great Jewish writer from Brazil. The book has been translated from Portuguese into a very readable English by Eloah P. Giacomelli. This novel tells the life story of Raquel Szenes, a girl who is born into a Hungarian Jewish family that has emigrated to Brazil in search of a better life.

Scliar narrates both the events of Raquel's life, as well as the inner world of her troubled dreams and fantasies. Many of Raquel's inner and outer struggles involve coming to terms with her Jewish identity. Early in the book, she deals with the complexity of dealing with being a Jewish student at a Catholic school. As she matures into a young woman, we accompany her on her quest for love, friendship, and sexual fulfillment. "The Gods of Raquel" is not Scliar's best work, but it is still a fascinating and valuable glimpse into Brazilian Jewish life.