The Three Marias

Through this translation of As Trs Marias the literary achievements of Rachel de Queiroz may at last be judged and appreciated by the English-reading public. Since none of her four novels has previously been translated into English The Three Marias will be for many non-Brazilians an introduction to this nationally known South American author whose books have been widely praised for their artistic merits. Her literary works are colored by her projected personality by an intense feeling for her own people by an omnipresent social consciousness and by personal experiences in the arid backlands of her native state of Cear.Basing this story on certain of her own recollections from the nineteen-twenties Rachel de Queiroz tells of a girl growing up in the seaport town of Fortaleza in northeastern Brazil. Fred P. Ellison whose special field is Brazilian and Spanish-American literature has captured in his translation the author''s graceful style and simplicity of language and has successfully retained the perspective of an idealistic and gradually maturing girl.