Journalist, pamphleteer and novelist, republican, anticlerical and abolitionist, Julio Ribeiro (1845-1890) is one of Brazil's most vigorous writers. Flesh (1888), his principal work of fiction, was written in the context of the Brazilian Naturalist movement and inspired very closely by the great French writer Emile Zola, to whom it is dedicated. It tells the story of Lenita, an exceptional young woman in contemporary Brazil, who embarks on a passionate affair with the middle-aged Manuel, son of fazenda owner Colonel Barbosa. Although the most revolutionary social criticism in the novel has to...