The Centaur in the Garden
1980
First Published
3.74
Average Rating
245
Number of Pages
In The Garden of Delights, a Tunisian restaurant in Sao Paulo, Guedali Tartakovsky celebrates his 38th birthday—that splendid age of newfound maturity and comprehension. It is only now that Guedali is able to revel in memories of glorious times past. Born a centaur—a mythical creature half-horse, half-human—Guedali describes his family's flight from Russia to Brazil at the turn of the century, the shock of his birth, the loving care of his parents and his sisters, the mounting resentment of his brother, and his extraordinary experiences being raised as a Jew. Torn between his deep attachment to his family and his natural instincts to roam wild, Guedali searches for a place where his startling duality is accepted and embraced. He joins a traveling circus, only to be discovered in an intimate encounter with the lion tamer. Guedali finds himself on the run again, and meets his life companion—a centauress. Together they embark on a journey to create a place where the human and the wild can live in peaceful coexistence.
Avg Rating
3.74
Number of Ratings
1,224
5 STARS
25%
4 STARS
37%
3 STARS
28%
2 STARS
8%
1 STARS
2%
goodreads
Author
Moacyr Scliar
Author · 20 books
Moacyr Jaime Scliar (born March 23, 1937) is a Brazilian writer and physician. Scliar is best known outside Brazil for his 1981 novel Max and the Cats (Max e os Felinos), the story of a young man who flees Berlin after he comes to the attention of the Nazis for having had an affair with a married woman. Making his way to Brazil, his ship sinks, and he finds himself alone in a dinghy with a jaguar who had been travelling in the hold.[1] The story of the jaguar and the boy was picked up by Yann Martel for his own book Life of Pi, winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize, in which Pi is trapped in a lifeboat with a tiger
