The terrible discovery of the plight of hunger

the circulation of Josué de Castro's novel Homens e Caranguejos (Of Men and Crabs)

Abstract

This article seeks to analyze the international circulation of Josué de Castro’s novel Of Men and Crabs (Homens e Caranguejos), as well as the representations of hunger made in its pages. The book was published simultaneously in October 1966 in France, Portugal and Spain. It also has 9 translations and 11 editions. In April 1964, Josué de Castro was exiled by the Brazilian civic-military dictatorship, so the novel was written during his exile in Paris. The story is told through the experiences of a boy called João Paulo, who fled the drought in the backlands with his family and seeks better living conditions in the mangroves of Recife, joining the crab cycle. The novel also contains its author’s criticisms of the exploitative and hunger-producing agrarian and capitalist structures, as well as memories of his childhood in Recife’s wetlands. The novel is seen as a denouncement, a rallying cry for the hungry. Josué de Castro’s international reputation, coupled with the networks of sociability he built up, helped to increase the book’s circulation capacity. We can also see that it has a wide international reach, with several laudatory reviews in French, North American, Spanish and Portuguese newspapers, among others.