Numa and the Nymph

A sharp, ironic portrait of politics, ambition, marriage, and power in early twentieth-century Brazil.

Numa and the Nymph is one of Lima Barreto's most penetrating political novels-a brilliant satire of parliamentary vanity, corruption, social climbing, and the fragile machinery of public reputation. Set during the turbulent years of Brazil's Old Republic, the novel follows Numa Pompílio de Castro, an obscure and mediocre congressman whose sudden rise as an eloquent public figure hides a far more uncomfortable truth: behind his speeches, strategies, and political survival stands Edgarda, his intelligent and ambitious wife.

With biting humor and remarkable psychological insight, Barreto exposes a society governed less by ideals than by favors, appearances, family alliances, newspaper influence, and private ambition. Through Numa, Edgarda, Benevenuto, political bosses, journalists, officers, opportunists, and social climbers, the novel presents a world in which public life is theater and power is often decided in drawing rooms, newspapers, private negotiations, and whispered arrangements.

This English translation brings a major work of Brazilian literature to new readers, preserving Barreto's irony, social criticism, and vivid portrait of Rio de Janeiro's political and social landscape. Both a political comedy and a serious critique of republican institutions, Numa and the Nymph remains strikingly modern in its view of ambition, manipulation, and the performance of public virtue.

Ideal for readers of classic political fiction, Latin American literature, social satire, and historical novels, this edition includes translator's notes, a preface, and a postface to guide contemporary readers through the cultural and historical background of the work.