A reprint of the award-winning novel about a Jewish family in which a centaur is born – a creature half man, half horse. The Centaur in the Garden was selected in 2002 by the National Yiddish Book Center (US) as the only Brazilian book among The 100 Greatest Works of Modern Jewish Literature written worldwide in the last two hundred years. This list includes writers such as Heinrich Heine, Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel, Leon Feuchtwanger, Bruno Schultz, Primo Levi, Arthur Miller, Philip Roth, and Nobel Prize winners S. Y. Agnon, Saul Bellow, I. B. Singer, Elias Canetti, and Elie Wiesel.
In the countryside of Rio Grande do Sul, in the tranquil home of the Tratskovsky family, a centaur is born: a creature that is half man, half horse. His name was Guedali, the fourth child of a Russian-Jewish immigrant couple. From this fantastic event, Moacyr Scliar crafts a novel that lies between fable and realism, highlighting the dual nature of life in society, where individualism and collectivity must be brought into harmony. The character of the centaur also illustrates the ethnic and religious division of the Jews, a people persecuted for their uniqueness.
Guedali grows up isolated and excluded from society, and his isolation leads him to cultivate the habit of reading. Intelligent and cultured, he guides the narrative set on the day of his 38th birthday, celebrated with friends in a restaurant in Sa o Paulo.
The centaur recalls his life, from his birth in Quatro Irma os, through his youth in Porto Alegre, where he marries Tita – also a centaur – to their journey to Morocco, where the couple attempts a surgery that will transform them into normal humans.
After numerous setbacks, Guedali ends up returning to Sa o Paulo, and the disconcerting outcome of his memories profoundly completes this thought-provoking narrative.
