Samba

Some of you might recall an earlier Phinney by Post pick, A Simple Story, by Leila Guerriero, about a dance contest in Argentina. Though it's a story about another dance contest in South America (during Carnival in Rio), Samba could hardly be more different. No one could ever call it simple, for one thing: into its 244 pages Guillermoprieto crams many dozens of characters and much of the political, economic, and racial history of Brazil, a history that the samba schools of Carnival often themselves enact in their chaotic, choreographed performances, in which the segregated classes and races of Brazilian society mix wildly for a moment but continue to define themselves against each other.