The Sertans. War in Canudos

«The Sertans. War in Canudos» (1902) — a documentary narrative about the suppression of the 1897 uprising by government troops in northeastern Brazil.

This civil conflict could have remained one of the series of socio-political upheavals at the end of the 19th — beginning of the 20th century, if not for the reporter Euclides da Cunha, who acted as the chronicler of the last military expedition to Canudos. 

He transformed his newspaper articles for O Estado de S. Paulo into a work that goes far beyond journalistic efforts, for the first time raising the issue of Brazilian national identity. 

This is simultaneously a military tale, a historical, geographical, and anthropological essay about the life of the backlands, little known even to Brazilians themselves.

The novel was highly regarded by Stefan Zweig, Robert Lowell, and Mario Vargas Llosa, who wrote the book «The War of the End of the World» based on the materials from «The Sertans». In his homeland, Euclides da Cunha's work became a classic of national literature and immortalized the name of its creator.