The author is Brazil's leading man of letters.. Jorge Amado is adored around the world. Translated from Portuguese by Gregory Rabassa. Set in Amado's lush Bahia, Brazil, in the early 1930s, SEA OF DEATH tells the story of Guma and Livia, lovers whose triumphs and tribulations mirror the dark imperatives of the world around them. "The men from dockside only have one path in life," Amado writes, "the path of the sea" . Here in the SEA OF DEATH are the sea's unconquerable mysteries and the robust yearnings of seafaring men, a world of storms and smugglers, of reckless passion and star-crossed love.