'The Emperor of the Amazon' is a book unlike any other. Arranged into brief vignette-style chapters (some only as long as a sentence) it tells the story of journalist turned dictator thrust into a position of power in the newly independent territory of Acre, Brazil. This wild tale leaps off into so many different directions that sometimes it's hard to keep track of what's going on, but when you adapt yourself to Souza's style, you will soon fall in love with both the story and its presentation. ( )

This is a wonderful and zany story, it was pretty short I managed it in just a day.
The premise is that a Brazilian journalist, through an outlandish and hilarious turn of events, suddenly finds himself on the way to trying to conquer a vast expanse of land (as I recall several times the size of Portugal, it was described), which also happened to be a massive source of rubber trees, during the very important time of 'the rubber boom' in South America.

The book was such a fun read, I literally let the entire day slip away without even feeling it! It has a wonderful and special brand of humor which I seem to notice a lot in South American literature. ( )