Book Review: Itamar Veiara Junior’s “Crooked Plow”
Crooked Plow is translated from Portuguese by Johnny Lorenz. It was shortlisted for the 2024 Man Booker International Prize and won the Jabuti award, the Prêmio LeYa award, and the Prêmio Jabuti award – Brazil’s three biggest literary awards.
Itamar Vieira Junior’s novel is a family saga set on the Água Negra plantation in Northeastern Brazil. In the throes of twentieth century modernization, a family of tenants labor under the tropical sun, scratching for a life in the fields they do not own. The pains and joys of their hard-fought, agricultural lives are portrayed generously and authentically in this narrative.
“The moment I wrenched my grandmother’s knife from the dry earth, blood poured forth. A red river began flowing across the land.”
It begins with a shocking event that kick-starts the lives of two young Brazilian sisters and cosmically changes their trajectories. One morning, they are both inexplicably drawn to a glimmering knife in their grandmother’s suitcase, and one sister slices off her tongue. The narrative goes to great lengths to hide from the reader which sister was made mute by the unexpected violence. Their bond is deepened through their trauma and dependence on one another, and watching the sisters’ relationship develop is one of the most compelling dramas of the novel. But this is the core image of the novel: unassuming children caught under the trance of the knife, an item of violence from their grandmother’s past. The effects are traced out into the rest of the family’s life, as they carve out a home forgotten by the world.
The earthy, flowing narration truly immerses you into the story of this family. It is cut into three parts, each told from a different perspective and each narrator presenting what feels like a complete narrative. It is best to go into the novel with little knowledge about what will happen and how it is told, due to the theater of their lives taking dramatic turns.
“Not much flourished around Água Negra, but we had our individual plots near the marshes, and we had our telenovelas on Damião’s TV as well as our Jarê rituals. My father was getting old, bent over by the years, his hair turning gray, but he was still out there working in the fields, Sunday to Sunday.”
The characters’ voices are so thoroughly entrenched in the life of tenant workers, whose world does not expand beyond a dozen miles, for their whole life. Their outlook is simple and determined. The river, the Buriti fruit, and the fields they spend their lives in are their sources of life. Drought brings uncertainty. Simple manioc flour pancakes keep them alive in times of famine. To them, the city is a place which is viewed with suspicion. After all, how can anyone walk on concrete all day and pay for every mango they want to eat?
Itamar Vieira’s compassion for the people of Água Negra is evident in the narrative. It feels intensely researched and painfully embodied. The anger of the characters bubbles over and threatens the fragile tension of the quilombola communities, which are made of escaped black slaves who formed their own settlements in Brazil. Their rights to the land were not acknowledged until far after slavery had been abolished. The conflicts that arise out of these afro-brazilian groups still speak to labor rights issues today.
The women are centered in the narrative, even in a culture where marriage is merely an institution for economic survival. They are given a voice through the text, even when one has her voice physically stolen from her. The two sisters at the center of the novel drive the story by their passion and often work to overturn the cruelty of evil men.
“Suffering: it’s something difficult to express, a feeling shunned by everyone, but it ties you, irreversibly, to your people. Suffering was the secret blood running through the veins of Água Negra.”
Crooked Plow is a moving novel, engrossed with the sufferings of family life. While it does lag near the three-quarters mark, there is enough momentum to pull the narrative through to its stunning conclusion. It reads unconventionally, to the effect of disarming the reader. I was wrapped up in the world of Água Negra, almost as if I were discovering a lost memoir. It spotlights the forgotten lives of tenant workers who are battling through a generational shift that will change their community forever. If you are unaware of this corner of Brazilian history or if you are well-versed in the story of the quilombolas, it is much worth the read.
Elijah Kubicek is a junior at Eastern Illinois University and an intern at Bluestem. He is majoring in English with a minor in Film Studies.