Fantasy Island (The Brave New Heart of Brazil)

Fifty years ago, Brazil relocated its capital city, situating it a thousand kilometers away from the coast, on the high, parched savanna. Here they built a brand new city, Brasilia, in the shape of an airplane speeding into the future. It became an icon, the model city of modernism. The plan had been to create a city free from class distinctions and corruption, without slums or squalor. That was the plan. In Brasilia, Henrik Brandäo Jönsson discovered a Brazil that was light years away from samba, soccer, and street life”the holy trinity of things normally celebrated about Brazil. Instead, he was confronted by loneliness, punk rockers, senseless violence, and a wealthy elite of politicians and bureaucrats. Fantasy Island documents how it was possible to build the most highly planned city in the world, and also what has happened to the people living there. Nowhere is the story of modern Brazil as clear to us as it is in its capital city, Brasilia.