num_pages: 232
description: Federico and Loreno are brothers. Their father is black a famed forensic pathologist for the police; their mother is white. Federico  distant angry analytical  has light skin which means hes always been able to avoid the worst of the racism Brazilian culture has to offer. He can pass as white and yet because of this he has devoted his life to racial justice. Loreno on the other hand is dark-skinned easy-going and well-liked in the brothers hometown of Porto Alegreand has become a father himself.As Federicos fiftieth birthday looms he joins a governmental committee in the capital. It is tasked with quelling the increasingly violent student protests rocking Brazil by overseeing the design of a piece of software that will adjudicate the degree to which each university applicant is sufficiently black to warrant admittance under new affirmative-action quotas. Before he can come to grips with his feelings about this initiative not to mention a budding romance with one of his committee colleagues Federico is called home: his niece has just been arrested at a protest carrying a concealed gun. And not just any gun. A stolen police service revolver that he and Loreno hid for a friend decades before. A gun used in a killing.Paulo Scott here probes the old wounds of race in Brazil and in particular the loss of a black identity independent from the history of slavery. Exploratory rather than didactic a story of crime street-life and regret as much as a satirical novel of ideas Phenotypes is a seething masterpiece of rage and reconciliation.
language: English
title: Phenotypes
publisher: And Other Stories