Calling the Election, 82 Years Ago

Little did you know that, according to the prophecy of one South American science fiction writer, we are 220 years ahead of the game in electing America's first black president.

In 1926, a Brazilian named Jose Bento Monteiro Lobato wrote O Presidente Negro -- The Black President -- which tells the story of a brilliant and charismatic leader named Jim Roy who is elected the first black president of the United States in the year 2228.

The novel had been out of print for 40 years when it was rushed to publication in March by Brazil's largest media conglomerate, Organizacoes Globo, and has already sold 7,000 copies out of a printing of 15,000 copies - a substantial figure as sales of Brazilian novels go.

And the book is going global, Bloomberg News reports. Last month it was published in Italy, and the book is being translated into English and Spanish from the Portuguese.

But before you rush out to buy your own copy of The Black President and hail its author the next Nostradamus, consider some of the controversial, erroneous, and rather unpalatable depictions of racial politics in Monteiro Lobato's America - including implicit criticism of the mixing of races and its seeming endorsement of the "science" of eugenics. Not to mention an ending that American readers are sure to find disturbing: Roy is found dead the morning he is set to assume the presidency.

Liz Gunnison