Howard Jackson

Innocent Mosquitoes Howard Jackson

In 1896 at Canudos, in the North East of Brazil, the new Republican Government slaughters thirty thousand people and wipes out the millenarian movement led by the priest Antonio Conselheiro. In 2008 Alfred a retired civil servant, decides to visit the site of the battle. Put his foot down on what is no more than a lonely spot on threadbare land. Alfred has no affinity with Brazil and no fondness for travelling outside his own country. Innocent Mosquitoes tells how, despite himself, Alfred visits Canudos in the backlands of Brazil. His weakness for whimsey and fantasy soon invokes the canine philosopher Quintas Borba, the ex-President Getuolio Vargas, notorious bandit Lampiao and other famous Brazilian ghosts. They help Alfred complete his 11,000 mile journey and understand his compulsion to commemorate alone the tragedy that happened in distant Bahia. Innocent Mosquitoes describes honestly, amusingly and movingly what Alfred saw and learnt on a journey where the naive met the innocent and the not so innocent.