Jorge Amadoi¿½s i¿½Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamoni¿½ is a tale of occurrences within several months in the township if Ilhi¿½us, which is a province of the larger city of Bahai, situated in the northern Brazil. The foreword of the Portuguese translation of the book starts out with the first day of the several months in which the tale or several talei¿½s unfoldi¿½the murder of Sinhi¿½zinha Guedes Mendoni¿½a and her paramour Osmundo Pimentel, the dentist by the cuckolded husband Colonel Jesui¿½no Mendoni¿½a. The same foreword also starts out with the description of i¿½old Filomenai¿½ the cook of the local bar-owner, the Syrian-born Nacib. (1) One mistakenly begins to believe that the tale is about these two stories. Interestingly enough, the foreword, which often provides a teaser for what is to come bears no mention of the purported heroine of the story Gabrielai¿½if indeed she is the heroine (for this novel has plenty of heroes and heroines who play their heroic or human [even humane] roles as the description of the occurrences unfold).
             More than four hundred and twenty pages later, one realizes that this novel is more than political infighting, legal wrangles, unrequited love, romantic conquests, and the progress of women within the microcosm that was Ilhi¿½us in the early part of the twentieth century. This essay will be written to describe the geographicali¿½cultural, political and economici¿½aspects that the novel touches on, made colorful by the characters that are parts of the geographical landscape of Ilhi¿½us.
             Through the few hundred pages of text of the novel, one sees a gradual change in the geographical landscape of Ilhi¿½us. Ilhi¿½us is not a big town. It is a mere province of one of the lesser known, but nonetheless growing cities of northern Brazili¿½Bahia. While the Ilhi¿½ans see Bahia as the center of their culture, the rest of the world might be more inclined to r...