Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon

One bright spring day in 1925, Gabriela arrives from the poverty-stricken backwoods of Brazil to the lively seaside port of Ilhéus amid a flock of filthy migrant workers. Though wearing rags and covered in dirt, she attracts the attention of Nacib, a cafe owner, who is in desperate need of a new cook. So dire is his situation that he hires the disheveled girl. The savvy young woman quickly proves to be an excellent chef and—once well-scrubbed and decently dressed—an eye-catching beauty. Nacib quickly finds himself the owner of the most prosperous business in town—and the employer of its most sought-after woman Vinda do agreste, Gabriela chega a Ilhéus em 1925, em busca de trabalho. É levada do “mercado dos escravos”, lugar onde acampam os retirantes, pelo árabe Nacib. O dono do bar Vesúvio não atenta de imediato para a beleza da moça, escondida sob os trapos e a poeira do caminho. Não tarda, porém, a descobrir que ela tem a cor da canela e o cheiro do cravo. Em breve, todos os homens da cidade vão se render aos encantos de Gabriela. Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon is a Brazilian modernist novel. It was written by Jorge Amado in 1958 and published in English in 1962. It is widely considered one of his finest works. A film adaptation of the same name was created in 1983. In that year of 1925, when the idyll of the mulatto girl Gabriela and Nacib the Arab began, the rains continued long beyond the proper and necessary season.