Fourth Romance of the Mineiro-Paraíba Bruno Ribeiro, Breed Pig is the latest national release from Darkside Books and winning work of the publisher's Machado Prize.
Delivering an impressive social commentary, amidst an intimate, hectic thriller, Breed Pig follows a currently failed professor from Paraíba who is always involved in trouble, until he ends up in a clandestine fighting ring, where poor men fight to entertain the rich. Everyone is forced to wear animal masks and subjected to an intense and cruel process of bestialization.
While presenting the nightmare that the now named swedish pig lives in his prison, forced to fight constantly, the protagonist takes a trip through his memories and presents his troubled past. Coming from a family that "whitened", considered by the author himself as "black soaps", he at first refuses to be equal to them - perfectly aligned with what white society expects of them. As a result, he is not well accepted by them and being the rebel, or - also in the author's words -, the black sheep of the family.
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In a simple but brutal way, Ribeiro delivers a story with a deep and nuanced character. In contrast to the rejections he suffered in life, from society for being black and from his family for not trying to fit in among white people, he ends up finding himself in the “fame” he acquires throughout the struggles and what was an absurd situation becomes his greatest achievement.
In prose form, Bruno invests in the protagonist's despair by writing in a desperate and real way, with words convincing to the life that the characters lead and inserts whenever possible a racial criticism, which is blatant in the absurdity used in the situation, but also in small details throughout the plot and thoughts.
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To increase the absurdity of the situation, the author also invests in contrasts that make the prejudice even more blatant. The perfect brother of the family, full of money now, is a corrupt politician, his father an alcoholic and his mother frustrated and arrogant. The only thing to be despised is the one who tried to be right and help society.
No intro or winding, Breed Portion puts the reader directly into the action and the events evolve in a non-linear way, presenting in a few words the difficult life of all the characters in the book, but in an accurate and touching way.
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Bruno Ribeiro reinforces how his writing is unique in Breed Pig. Using a theme that recently began to reappear in pop culture, the author manages to deliver a shocking and absurd work, but that does not lose its intimate and critical touch, with the addition of inserting references to classics of literature.
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