# The best books of Brazilian literature

The Brazilian novels and books that appear most in the canon and in recent lists such as Folha's 200 books to understand Brazil (2022), from Machado de Assis to Itamar Vieira Junior.

- 0 votes · 20 items
- Jul 15, 2026 · episodio79
- https://even.best/en/l/299/the-best-books-of-brazilian-literature

## Top 20

1. **Dom Casmurro** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Machado de Assis, 1899. Bentinho, Capitu and her 'undertow eyes': did she betray him or not?
2. **The Devil to Pay in the Backlands** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — João Guimarães Rosa, 1956. Riobaldo, Diadorim and the devil in the sertão; second on Folha's list.
3. **The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Machado de Assis, 1881. A dead author narrates his own life; a landmark of Brazilian realism.
4. **Child of the Dark** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Carolina Maria de Jesus, 1960. The diary of a waste picker in the Canindé favela; first among Folha's 200 books.
5. **Barren Lives** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Graciliano Ramos, 1938. Fabiano, Sinhá Vitória and the dog Baleia fleeing the drought.
6. **The Hour of the Star** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Clarice Lispector, 1977. Macabéa, a north-eastern migrant in Rio; the last book published in the author's lifetime.
7. **Macunaíma** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Mário de Andrade, 1928. The 'hero without any character', a rhapsody of Brazilian modernism.
8. **Rebellion in the Backlands** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Euclides da Cunha, 1902. The War of Canudos told by a reporter who witnessed it.
9. **Captains of the Sands** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Jorge Amado, 1937. Street children in Salvador; burned in public by the Estado Novo regime.
10. **The Slum** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Aluísio Azevedo, 1890. A Rio tenement as a living organism; the great naturalist novel.
11. **São Bernardo** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Graciliano Ramos, 1934. Paulo Honório, a landowner who destroys everything he loves.
12. **Crooked Plow** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Itamar Vieira Junior, 2019. Two sisters in the Chapada Diamantina; Jabuti and Oceanos prizes and a best-seller.
13. **The Sad End of Policarpo Quaresma** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Lima Barreto, 1915. The nationalist major who proposes Tupi as the official language.
14. **The Passion According to G.H.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Clarice Lispector, 1964. A woman, a cockroach and a mystical experience in an apartment.
15. **Dead Fires** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — José Lins do Rego, 1943. The decline of Paraíba's sugar mills.
16. **Time and the Wind** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Erico Verissimo, 1949–1962. Two hundred years of Rio Grande do Sul's history in three parts.
17. **Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Jorge Amado, 1958. Ilhéus, cocoa and the migrant Gabriela.
18. **The Year Fifteen** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Rachel de Queiroz, 1930. The 1915 drought in Ceará, written when the author was 19.
19. **Ancient Tillage** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Raduan Nassar, 1975. André, the Lebanese family and forbidden desire, in poetic prose.
20. **Iracema** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — José de Alencar, 1865. The 'virgin with honey lips' and the founding myth of Ceará.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.