Vidas Secas
 Vidas Secas (translated into English as Barren Lives although seca literally means dry) is a novel by twentieth-century Brazilian writer Graciliano Ramos written in 1938. It tells the cyclical story of a family of five: Fabiano the father; Sinhá Vitória the mother; two sons (just called boys) and their dog called Baleia (whale in Portuguese) in the poverty stricken and arid Brazilian northeast.