Şeker Portakalı
In a poor suburb of Rio de Janeiro in the 1920s, five-year-old Zezé is too clever and too mischievous for his own good. Neglected by an overworked mother and an unemployed father prone to beating him, he escapes into an inner world of imagination, mischief, and conversations with Minguinho, the small orange tree in the backyard that he has adopted as a confidant.
Everything changes when Zezé befriends Manuel Valadares — "Portuga" — a gruff but gentle Portuguese man who becomes the father figure and source of warmth he has never had. Their friendship, tender and unlikely, opens Zezé's world just as the story moves toward tragedy.
Based loosely on the author's own childhood, My Sweet Orange Tree (published in Turkish as Şeker Portakalı) is a beloved Brazilian classic — a deceptively simple, deeply affecting portrait of a child's resilience, cruelty, and capacity for love, and of how quickly innocence can be lost.
A precocious, mischievous five-year-old whose imagination is his refuge from poverty and neglect.
A gruff but kind-hearted older Portuguese man who becomes Zezé's closest friend and father figure.
Zezé's older brother, protective and often his partner in mischief.
Zezé's older sister, one of the few family members who shows him tenderness.