"Novel's title refers to a little bird that jumps up and down in place. Its habitat extends from São Paulo to parts of the Amazon. Narrator symbolically links this bird's movements to the route of a northeasterner who, like millions of others in the last 40 years of the 20th century, migrates to São Paulo in search of wealth and happiness. Just as the tiziu bird returns to its starting place, the protagonist also moves back to his hometown after 25 years of poverty. The city of São Miguel Paulista and its ill-famed Nitroquímica factory on the outskirts of São Paulo, which once was the principal destination of northern and northeastern migrants, appears prominently in this sad and realistic account of a life fed by illusions and fragmented by disillusion"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.