Madison Wolf
December 2, 2018
The young adult book, The Head of the Saint was originally written by the Brazilian author, Socorro Acioli in 2014. The story was then translated by a British writer and translator, Daniel Hahn, from Portuguese to English. The Head of the Saint is a story about a young, teenage boy named Samuel who is left alone after his only family member, his mother, tragically passes. Samuel’s mother was considered an innocent, loving, and compassionate women who only saw the good in life. She was also very devoted to her Saints whom she prayed to several times a day. When his mother, Mariihna, passed away, her last dying wish was to have Samuel travel to a town named Candeia where he would find his estranged father and grandmother. Most importantly, she asked that Samuel say a prayer at the feet of the statue of St. Anthony with three different candles. When Samuel arrives, he is pushed away by his grandmother when she demands he go to a cave in the town. The cave she appointed to him was not just a cave, but the head of a dismembered statue of St. Anthony. While staying there, he realizes he can hear the crying prayers of women who long for true love, as St. Anthony is the saint of love. Samuel uses this knowledge to make money off of people desperate for true love. Though one voice of a woman singing resonates with Samuel, and he desperately tries to understand what she is singing about, and who she is. Meanwhile, as the news of his abilities spread throughout the abandoned town, Candeia grew to be a main tourist attraction. Through this commotion, Samuel’s adventure unveils the identity of his father, who was in hiding. During this discovery another story is told; one about a man and woman who married young. The man married this woman and then traveled to Africa for business. There, he met another woman, fell in love and had a child with her. After that woman tragically died, the man returned to his wife in Brazil who gave birth to their first child while he was away for two long years. Though he tried to convince his wife that the child he returned with was astray and adopted by him, his affair was soon exposed. The wife’s revenge was to murder her husband and force his child out of their home. The child, a young girl who only spoke her native African language, spent her days wandering, singing the song’s her mother sang to her before she passed. As this story is told, Samuel makes the connection that the woman he hears singing in St. Anthony’s head is this same child grown up, longing for her mother’s love. Though Samuel finds his father, his ultimate mission becomes to find the woman singing. He eventually finds her, homed safely in a family of the town’s home. The end of the story connects Samuel’s mother’s knowledge of the singing woman and the intent of having them meet. Her request for him to light the three candles in front of St. Anthony was to guide him through the discovery of this past life, and to bring him to fruition of his future.
The Head of The Saint was sometimes a confusing story to read, and I often times had to refer to other points of the story to follow. In a YouTube video that Socorro Acioli made about this book, she discusses the translation of the book into English. She prefaces by saying that this story is a real situation that happens in Brazil – the belief of saints and the stories of voices being heard, which lead to fate (Hot Key Books). She also describes the culture of Brazil by saying that St. Anthony is a popular saint there and that when girls turn 15 or 16 years old, it is time to get married and they will visit St. Anthony to pray for a husband (Hot Key Books). She also helps explain the reasoning behind the statue of St. Anthony, and why the head and the body were separated. While the statue was being made, the head stayed on the floor and the body made it to the top of the hill (Hot Key Books). This is why when Samuel lived in the head of the saint, he did not know his father was living in the feet of the saint the whole time. Her explanation of the premise of the book helped me understand the culture behind the story. Brazilian culture is different than American culture because it is very much faith-based. What seemed like a fantasy story to me, an American, is a normal story told in Brazilian culture. In addition, I felt that the way characters handled situations in the book were more direct and negligent of any laws or regulations than they would if it took place in America. For instance, the wife who was cheated on handled her situation by killing her husband, and she never received any punishment. In addition, the singing woman was held in someone’s home for safety seemed to be downplayed more than it would have been if that were to be translated into American culture. Considering this, Acioli even says that The Head of The Saint’s translation to English is meant for readers to “learn a little bit about the culture, the traditions, and about the humor about the situations about the food, the habits, and how they live [in Brazil]” (Hot Key Books). Reading a book that takes place in another country, and written by a native author of that country gives more insight to the reality of another culture.
Literature Cited:
Acioli, Socorro. The Head of The Saint. Translated by Daniel Hahn, Delacorte Press, 2014.
Hot Key Books. “Socorro Acioli about the English Translation of The Head of the Saint.” YouTube, YouTube, 7 Nov. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRNJAIYNbCc.