MY SWEET ORANGE TREE

The misadventures of a precocious 5-year-old in 1920s Rio de Janeiro.

Gifted Zezé’s family has been down on their luck since his father lost his job. His smarts and imagination are often misdirected into pranks that lead to violent punishment. Life starts to look up when Zezé begins school and also meets two new friends: Pinkie, the talking orange tree which grows in the garden of the family’s new house, and Manuel, a Portuguese man who becomes his only source of adult tenderness and care. But just as Zezé’s family’s fortunes start to change, the boy meets relentless tragedy and heartbreak. First published in 1968, this autobiographical novel is at once a bleak portrayal of emotional and physical abuse and an affecting examination of the healing powers of imagination and of nurturing friendship. Zezé is told multiple times—and internalizes the message—that the devil is inside him, and the shockingly graphic violence often leaves him bleeding (one such beating leads the boy to think of suicide). It’s only when he shares his emotional pain with “Portuga” (Zezé’s nickname for Manuel) that he starts to learn what real love is. With a plainspoken and episodic narrative, the novel reads as a coming-of-age story despite the character’s youth. Zezé is fair and blond, Portuguese on his father’s side and Apinajé Indian on his mother’s.

A Brazilian classic with a whimsical and heart-rending essence.