Brazilian novelist Jorge Amado has returned to his beloved Bahia, that tropical coastal city of whites, mulattos, and blacks, to lay the scene for another adventure of the human spirit. And his message, presented more vehemently [in Tent of Miracles] than in his two most successful earlier novels, Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon (1962) and Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1969), is again the need to love and have tolerance towards one's fellow man.

Buttressed by delightful ribaldry and exotic trimmings, along with detailed observations of black culture and religion, Tent of Miracles is basically a propagandistic work that advocates miscegenation…. For a novel with such didactic purpose, Tent of Miracles reads exceptionally well…. (pp. 26-7)

Bahia surely has no greater poet than Jorge Amado. (p. 27)

Donald A. Yates in Saturday Review (© 1971 by Saturday Review Inc., reprinted with permission), August 28, 1971.

North American readers have precious few chances to look at...