Enchantments - Folk Tales from Amazonia

In ‘Enchantments’, Ana Crís Wey draws upon narratives, images, and characters rooted in Indigenous and Amazonian traditions to craft her own fictional world—one where the familiar is transformed, revealing new layers and returning to the reader with a sense of freshness. The aim is not to explain origins or cement specific versions of tales, but to enter the living territory of oral storytelling: a realm where a flower might bloom from a star, a serpent might carry worlds, a mermaid might guard the memory of the waters, and a whistle might alter the destiny of a traveler crossing the forest. A Brazilian living in Thailand for years, Ana Crís Wey seems to write from that very distance—not as a detached observer of her homeland, but as someone striving to keep alive an intimate dialogue with its landscapes, enchanted beings, waters, forests, fears, and wonders. Ranging from luminous tales to others touched by shadows, loss, desire, or mischief, Encantamentos offers the reader an experience of imagination in motion—after all, some stories remain alive precisely because they never cease to transform. Telma Cavalieri Victorio’s illustrations expand this universe, composing scenes where forest, water, body, and dream seem to be made of the same enchanted substance. A book to be read with delight, curiosity, and close attention. Encantamentos celebrates the power of stories that are born anew whenever someone is willing to listen to them once more. Rita Demarchi & Katia C.