Iracema by José de Alencar. Translated by Clifford E. Landers, Edited by Naomi Lindstrom, and Alcides Villaca in "Library of Latin America" / [ISBN: 0199938865, 9780199938865 ]. José de Alencar's prose-poem Iracema, first published in 1865, is a classic of Brazilian literature--perhaps the most widely-known piece of fiction within Brazil, and the most widely-read of Alencar;s many works. Set in the sixteenth century, it is an extremely romantic portrayal of a doomed live between a Portuguese soldier and an Indian maiden. Iracema reflects the gingerly way that mid-nineteenth century Brazil dealt with race mixture and multicultural experience. Precisely because of its nineteenth-century romanticism, Iracema strongly contributed to a Brazilian sense of nationhood--contemporary Brazilian writers and literary critics still cite it as a foundation for their own work.
