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Samba | 
 enlarge | Author: Alma Guillermoprieto
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy Used: $0.39
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Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 140675
Media: Paperback
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.4
ISBN: 067973256X
Dewey Decimal Number: 394.25098153
EAN: 9780679732563
ASIN: 067973256X
Publication Date: July 30, 1991
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Product Description
For one year, Alma Guillermoprieto lived in Manguiera, a village near Rio de Janeiro, to learn the ritual of samba--the sensuous song and dance marked by a rapturous beat--and to take part in Rio's renowned carnivale parade.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 An excellent read and fairly good information. June 22, 1999
19 out of 21 found this review helpful
I'm not a musicologist and couldn't tell you if the music info here is 100% accurate. As someone who's lived in and studied Brazil for 11 years however, I found the author's descriptions of favela life to be very well done. There's information here I've never seen elsewhere. Her musicology may leave a lot to be desired, but to say her opinion on race and cultural issues in Brazil is flat-out wrong strikes me as the opinion of someone with a nativist axe to grind. Perhaps some readers originally thought this book's primary focus /was/ samba when they bought it. That is not the case: it's a well written amateur ethnology of favela life. Be forewarned. Read this book if you want a decent (if necessarily superficial) introduction to the life of the urban poor in modern Brazil. For samba, specifically, or a more advanced analysis, I suggest Hermano Vianna's Mystery of Samba or anyone of a number of academic works on Brazil, starting with Freyre's "Masters and Slaves" or Da Matta's "Carnivals, Rogues and Heroes."
Response to other reviews May 24, 2000
18 out of 21 found this review helpful
This is a good book written by a journalist who consistently produces some of the most insightful work on Latin America in the U.S. print media. Writing from a journalist's perspective about her own experiences as a white Mexican living in Brazil it's a great read. I was captivated when I read it. Other reviewers are correct, there are better studis of all the subjects she covers, and as a Latin American historian, lusophile, and student of Capoeira I could find flaws to; here historical sections are simplistic, etc. But why bother? She did live there and join a Samba school, she freely admits her limitations, concerns, and desires, and she writes like a dream. That is hard to find and worth reading.
 A Social History of Black Brazil February 19, 2002
Michael K. McKeon (Seattle, WA United States)
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
Guillermoprieto is both a skilled writer and a serious scholar. That combination makes this erudite, and exceedingly detailed study of the black underclass in Brazilian society both readable and engaging. She employs an inductive approach, using the culture surrounding the Samba and Carnival in Rio as a base for exploring the status of blacks in Brazilian society and the many contradictions and ironies in light of their prevailing influence in all levels of Brazilian culture.The story is fascinating and the author admirable, because in order to learn and effectively represent the culture of the Samba and black Brazilian society (which she pretty effectively demonstrates are in many ways largely synonymous) she not only joined a Samba club in order to participate in Carnival, but also moved into the favelas of Rio. Guillermoprieto depicts the injustice of the blacks' fate in Brazil in a dispassionate, yet also very poignant and sympathetic manner. She allows the compelling facts to represent themselves without embellishing them with personal assessments, which makes her writing that much more powerful. This is really a great book: a fascinating story about the complex organization and serious part of the Brazilian economy that the Samba and Carnival comprise, and a distinctive and holistic representation of black Brazilian society and the rest of that nation in its reflection.
A fascinating account of Afro-Brazilian musical culture October 30, 1999
8 out of 12 found this review helpful
Samba is a highly personal account by a journalist who takes us into the center of the carnival experience in Rio, seen from the point of view of a very poor neighborhood with a rich carnival tradition. Through this we learn worlds about Afro-Brazilian culture, the notion of "exotic" as often applied to the tropics, and about Ms. Guillermoprieto's fascinating way of understanding and relating, as a Mexican, to a powerful Latin tradition quite other than hers. While there are some problems of organization, this is a very informative book, but mostly I found it fun, and it made me want to be in Rio and to dance.
 Superficial But Well-Written August 2, 1999
6 out of 16 found this review helpful
I agree with the negative reviews below. The author, while skilled with the written word, is a cultural tourist who never quite grasps the essence of what is around her. And, yes, her ignorance of "samba" is annoying. For me, this book was a waste of money.
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