He saw 'the coming'

A long-forgotten Brazilian sci-fi novel novel saw 'the coming', and now it has shot up the bestsellers list and is making a lot of money for the publisher, but not the author who has already passed on. What surprises me is that there is only one such book reported.

The novel written by Monteiro Lobato, a Brazilian children's author who died in 1948, was called The Black President (O Presidente Negro). In the story, Jim Roy, a black politician becomes the 88th President of the USA in the year 2228 that pits him against a feminist called Evelyn Astor -- Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin? It was originally serialised in 1926, with a narrative revolving around a crystal ball-like machine capable of predicting the future.

Unlike George orwell who chose 1984 (a reverse of the year 1948), Lobato chose a date much further along. He was writing science fiction, of course.

A quote from the Observer says: 'Apart from the fact that the President is black, his rival is a blonde woman,' says Lucia Machado, from publisher Globo, which bought the rights to Lobato's entire back catalogue. 'It was a huge coincidence,' she says. 'The US was about to have its elections; we took advantage of that and sped up its release.' The book hit Brazilian shelves earlier this year, as Obama and Hillary Clinton battled it out for the Democratic nomination, accompanied by the slogan: 'Any resemblance to actual events is pure coincidence.'

The Guardian