Publisher's Synopsis
From 1631 to 1763, the Portuguese Empire and the Catholic Church continue their reign over the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As the conquering conquistadors wield their power over the city's politics, economics, and thriving slave regime, oppression and corruption are the driving forces behind these numerous and diverse stories of personal suffering.
Slaves, desperate for freedom, escape their owners and flee the metropolis to establish their own hidden communities, called mocambos. Kimbakala, a Congo native, is one of these runaway slaves, and he must use his strength and intuition to maintain his position as chief of his own mocambo. In the heart of the city, Rebecca is Jewish and a victim of the powerful Father Pequeno's bigotry and loathing for her kind. On the shores, the fisherman Tristao, abandoned as a baby and raised by slaves, struggles into manhood.
Whether impoverished or elite, each inhabitant must try to navigate the endless dangers, twists, and turns that come with living in eighteenth-century Rio.
This third volume of the Seeds of Suffering series continues its unflinching depiction of the human desire for money, power, love, and ultimately survival-set in one of the world's most beautiful cities.
