Recordações do Escrivão Isaías Caminha
By Lima Barreto
Cover: Morro de São Bento (1887), painting by Eliseu Visconti (1866–1944) · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (artist died 1944)
Isaías, a bright young mixed-race man from a small town, goes to Rio de Janeiro to become a doctor and instead ends up as a clerk on a powerful newspaper. Lima Barreto's first novel is a bitter, funny portrait of the press, the city's elites and the walls built against a man like him.
Summary written with Claude Sonnet 5.5.