Superb Sentences: Euclides da Cunha
A series of beautiful phrases, sentences, and excerpts from Brazilian literature leading up to Brazil’s National Day of the Book on October 29.
This now-iconic sentence is from da Cunha’s 1902 non-fiction epic about the Brazilian government’s fight against rebellion in the village of Canudos, “Os Sertões” (literally “The Hinterlands” referring to the interior part of Brazil away from the big coastal cities, especially - and in this case specifically - the interior of the northeast; a translation in English was published in 1957 under the title “Rebellion in the Backlands”): “O sertanejo é, antes de tudo, um forte.” (The word “sertanejo” refers to someone from the “Sertão.”)