Raimundo Menezes Filho

The Tale of Pedro Mena and the Fate of Napoleon Bonaparte's Ship Raimundo Menezes Filho

To sail is necessary, to live is not needed! As in the phrase of Pompey, celebrated in the poem of Fernando Pessoa, Pedro Mena is not able to calculate accurately, the history of his life. But, it's precisely the surprise that makes the experience of living so fantastic. In a surprising plot that brings Europe closer to the Northeastern Sertão aboard the ship that carried the remains of Napoleon Bonaparte, from the Island of Saint Helena to France, nothing is constant. In an unfolding of multiple events that mixes fiction and reality, the saga of the Anton de Mena family frames the real history of Brazil, from the Empire to the Republic. A book that holds attention from the first line to the last, with humor and erudition. The history of Pedro Mena is also a great homage to the sertão, especially the Pernambuco, and the splendor of the arts with references to the works of Shakespeare, Dante Alighieri, Goethe, Homer, Ariano Suassuna, to flamenco ballet and even a tribute veiled to Pink Floyd's music. The wisdom of madmen and drunks, art, and philosophy in the fantastic realism that shows that our backlands are also Iberian and Andalusian, marks the debut of Raimundo Menezes in literature. Raimundo, who, like the descendants of the Mena, grew up in the simple and cultured hinterland. In this work, Raimundo Menezes invites us to sail through the Cadagua, Garrone, São Francisco, Pajeú rivers. To cross the waterfalls of Paulo Afonso and to know the legend of the Ship's Creek transporting us from the immensity of the world to the traditions of the Pajeú Valley, "going out of the sea to the stream of the Ship's Creek" and delighting in the wisdom that only an imprecise life can give us. Good reading!