Captains of the Sands (Jorge Amado, 1937)

A gang of orphans and runaways live by their wits and daring in the torrid slums and sleazy back alleys of Bahia. They call themselves “Captains of the Sands”.
Led by fifteen-year-old “Bullet,” the band—including a crafty liar named “Legless,” the intellectual “Professor,” and the sexually precocious “Cat”—pulls off heists and escapades against the right and privileged of Brazil. But when a public outcry demands the capture of the “little criminals,” the fate of these children becomes a poignant, intensely moving drama of love and freedom in a shackled land.

Captains of the Sands captures the rich culture, vivid emotions, and wild landscape of Bahia with penetrating authenticity and brilliantly displays the genius of Brazil’s most acclaimed author, Jorge Amado.
In 1937, the Brazilian military publicly burned over 800 copies of the book, and put Amado in prison as a communist agitator.