The Lizard's Smile by Joao Ubaldo Ribeiro. New York. 1994. Atheneum. 0689121253. Translated from the Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers. 357 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Marc Burckhardt. Jacket design by Mary Schuck.
DESCRIPTION - THE LIZARD'S SMILE is the first novel in five years from the internationally acclaimed Brazilian novelist João Ubaldo Ribeiro. A best-seller in his native land, it is a suspenseful, spirited, and very funny novel about a truly serious subject-the hazards of genetic engineering-that confirms Ribeiro's reputation as one of the masters of the Latin American novel. Set on an island off the coast of Bahia in northeast Brazil, THE LIZARD'S SMILE centers on one João Pedroso, a disenchanted biologist who has given up his profession to become a fishmonger. Kindly if a bit enigmatic, given to drink and rumination, João has recently been disturbed by a vague but pervasive sense 0f evil, manifesting itself chiefly among the island's animal family. Arrayed around him are such figures as the Secretary of Health for Bahia, Dr. Angelo Marcos Barreto, a fastidious, compulsive, and corrupt millionaire who has been diagnosed as having cancer, his much younger wife, Ana Clara, who has developed an appetite for her husband's medicinal stash 0f marijuana, for the seemingly irresistible João, and for a pseudonymous journal in which she records her adventures in high style . Father Monteirinho, the local priest, who finds it increasingly hard to be confidant and drinking partner to his parishioners while exercising his churchly duties, and Dr. Lücio NemEsio, surgeon and director 0f the island's new, state-of-the-art hospital, an older man, easily worried by the behavioral tics he is beginning to witness around him.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - JOAO UBALDO RIBEIRO was born on the island of Itaparica (in the middle of All Saints Bay and is part of the state of Bahia, Brazil), and spent much of his childhood in the neighboring state of Sergipe. He went to law school at the Federal University of Bahia ‘because it was the thing to do for intellectuals such as I fancied myself to be.' Ubaldo Ribeiro then went to the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, graduating as a Master of Public Administration with a minor in Political Science. In 1972-1973 was a guest of the University of Iowa International Writing Program. His first novel, SETEMBRO NAO TEM SENTIDO (September Has No Meaning), brought him early critical acclaim. He worked as a journalist and a teacher in Salvador, the capital of Bahia, but decided he wanted to be a full-time writer and ‘fish occasionally.' Ubaldo Ribeiro has been married three times and has four children. After living in Salvador, Portugal, and Rio de Janeiro, he returned to live in Itaparica. Of AN INVINCIBLE MEMORY he says: ‘I kept making up the story as I went along. The rest is Brazilian history as was taught to me in school, and I didn't believe a word of it. My grandfather was a historian of sorts and used to talk to me about our island all the time. It took me longer to translate it into English (about two years) than to write (about a year and a half).' He is also the author of SERGEANT GETULIO (1978), which was hailed as ‘an astounding success' (The Atlantic). In 1971 SERGEANT GETULIO was published and won Brazil's prestigious Jabuti Prize for best novel of the year. It has been in published in Portugal and (in translation) in France. Joao Ubaldo Ribeiro currently lives in Salvador, Brazil, where he is editor in chief of the Tribuna da Bahia. In the English speaking world his An Invincible Memory has been highly praised. Several of his books and short tails have been turned into movies and TV series in Brazil.
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