''The One Man Army'' (

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

: ''O Exército de um Homem Só'') is

Moacyr Scliar Moacyr Jaime Scliar (March 23, 1937February 27, 2011) was a Brazilian writer and physician. Most of his writing centers on issues of Jewish identity in the Diaspora and particularly on being Jewish in Brazil. Scliar is best known outside Brazil ...

's second

novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

, published in 1973 and translated into more than ten languages, and presents the saga of Captain Birobidjan, hero of a new world, preacher of utopias, lonely and hopeful navigator of a sea of indifference.

Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ( ; ; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was a Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelist ...

' main book, Don Quixote, inspired the book according to the author himself. Moacir Scliar

Characteristics

Moacyr puts in his book the essence of pure

heroism A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or strength. The original hero type of classical epics did such things for the sake of ...

, of the utopian efforts of the great

men A man is an adult male human. Before adulthood, a male child or adolescent is referred to as a boy. Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chromosome from the fa ...

and

women A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional u ...

of the world, and at the same time highlights the figure who, being so fearless and dreamy, almost succumbs to the reality of the facts. Its protagonist, Captain Birobidjan, is a version of

Don Quixote , the full title being ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'', is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, the novel is considered a founding work of Western literature and is of ...

Plot

The title character is Mayer 'Capitão Birobidjan' Guiznburg, a

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

who arrived in

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

as a boy from

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. Mayer was a

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

and dreamed of founding a new Birobidjan (Birobidjan was the name of a collective Jewish colony in Russia), a socialist utopia. In Nova Birobidjan, as he baptizes his land, he starts to live for work accompanied by the Pig Companion, the Goat Companion and the Chicken Companion, the last of which he did not like because he was unproductive. After some time enemies appear, four vagrants who attack after being attacked, and whose collective lover starts to become the second citizen. Later she leaves Nova Birobidjan and Mayer returns home. He retires, after a while he even leaves

atheism Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the Existence of God, existence of Deity, deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the ...

, and starts to work hard. He switches branches for construction and gets rich, but gets complicated when he becomes the secretary's lover and ends up getting divorced after abandoning her. His company goes bankrupt and he ends up in a pension, where he tries to restart Nova Birobidjan, but ends up failing. Cornered, abandoned, sad, very attached to religion and almost without hope

he little men to whom he was speaking now were only three He or HE may refer to: Language * He (letter), the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads * He (pronoun), a pronoun in Modern English * He (kana), one of the Japanese kana (へ in hiragana and ヘ in katakana) * Ge (Cyrillic), a Cyrillic letter call ...

Captain Birobidjan has a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

when rehearsing a resistance, but as we discovered at the beginning of the book, he survives.

References

1973 Brazilian novels {{1970s-novel-stub