Tent of Miracles

Tent of Miracles is a 1968 modernist novel by Brazilian author Jorge Amado. It was written in 1967, in response to a catastrophe in Brazil three years earlier in which its state military seized control of its elections and government. The story concerns Dr. James D. Levenson, an American professor, who travels to Brazil to research the life of obscure community leader and scientist Pedro Archanjo upon the centennial of his birth. Dr. Levenson hires a Brazilian poet, Fausto Pena, to tell Archanjo’s story. Due to Dr. Levenson’s academic prestige and Pena’s compelling voice, the research effort receives much publication, and elevates Archanjo, contentiously, to the stature of a national symbol representing Brazilian democracy and dignity. The novel was adapted into a Brazilian film in 1977.

The novel is mostly set in Pelourinho, an old neighborhood in Bahia characterized by its hybrid of African and Brazilian cultures. In 1968, Dr. Levinson arrives in Brazil to perform research on Archanjo’s life in order to write a foreword for a translated book of Archanjo’s works. Levinson considers Archanjo’s writings to be important contributions to mulatto literature. A handsome man with a Nobel Prize under his belt, his arrival instantly piques the interest of Brazilian academics and media. Most of the hype is generated not due to a genuine interest in uncovering this mysterious leader’s life, but because his momentary importance represents an opportunity to make money and advance people’s careers.

Archanjo’s story is told in a series of vignettes spanning different decades in Pelourinho, from the late nineteenth century to the mid twentieth century. Pelourinho is home to a vibrant body of creative people, including artists, musicians, craftsmen, martial arts dancers (“capoeiristas”), mestizo poets, shamans, and people posing as religious authorities. The majority of the artistic community is located next to the campus of the state’s main medical school. The community’s epicenter is said to be a shop within the medical school known as the “Tent of Miracles.” There, Lidio Corro operates a printing press for Pedro Archanjo, a prominent figure at the university, to support his prolific knowledge production in the arts and social sciences. Many people come to Corro for spiritual advice, and he offers guidance in the form of paintings.



To show how Archanjo became a scientist and community leader, the narrator turns to his early roots. Born into a poor family, Archanjo’s life may have been by most measures ordinary; however, his father was murdered in Brazil’s war against Paraguay in 1868, when he was still an infant. During childhood, Archanjo demonstrated a keen interest in learning and making new scientific insights. He never learned science in a formal setting; rather, he preferred learning that was hands-on and self-taught. He entered the university structure through a messenger job in 1900. The job, though menial, gave him access to academics and their work, as well as a venue for spreading his own work. In 1904, he began to publish his own research. This was met with opposition from several people, mainly Nilo Argolo, a notorious racist. Argolo then participated in a debate against Archanjo, in which he declared that the Aryan race was inherently better suited for intellectual life. Archanjo demolished this argument, humiliating Argolo, after he discovered that they shared a common ancestor who was black.

Archanjo’s most contentious feature was his acceptance of miscegenation, the interbreeding of people of different races. The political climate of Brazil was not friendly in this respect; Archanjo was ultimately imprisoned, and the Tent of Miracles illegally shut down by a racist police chief, Pedrito Gordo. Though he languished in jail for the latter part of his life, his voice transcended the prison walls, becoming a powerful critic of Aryan supremacy even as Hitler rose to power in Europe. Archanjo believed that miscegenation could be a tool against nationalism and racism, since it would, over time, create a racial convergence.

At the end of the novel, Bahia’s pseudointellectuals, politicians, and other elites celebrate the centennial of a man who was hardly known just months earlier. The celebration culminates at Bahia’s carnival in 1969. Tent of Miracles demonstrates that the visibility and import of different historical figures are not fully determined by the merit or impact of their actual contributions, but by regimes of power outside any individual’s control or ability to predict.