Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama's election as America's first black president is fueling worldwide demand for a forgotten 1926 science-fiction novel from Brazil.

Jose Bento Monteiro Lobato's ``O Presidente Negro'' (``The Black President'') tells the story of Jim Roy, a brilliant and charismatic leader who is elected America's first black president in the year 2228.

Out of print for 40 years, the pulp novel was republished in March by Brazil's largest media conglomerate, Organizacoes Globo, at the height of the Democratic primary battle between Obama and New York Senator Hillary Clinton, a contest that drew comparisons to Roy's race against a fictitious white feminist named Evelyn Astor.

Now the obscure work -- controversial for what some critics see as its defense of racism -- is going international. Last month, it was published in Italy by Edizzione Controluce under the title ``Il Presidente Nero.'' The book is being translated into English and Spanish from Portuguese.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in a June interview with the Sao Paulo newspaper Gazeta Marcantil, said Obama's victory was foretold by Monteiro Lobato.

`Pure Coincidence'

The book was rushed to publication in March after its antiquated Portuguese was updated for modern readers. Full-page advertisements in national magazines under the tagline ``Any resemblance to actual events is pure coincidence'' have spurred sales of 7,000 copies for 28 reais ($11.73) each. They printed 15,000 copies, the same amount as the original printing.

Brazilian bloggers debate the book's racial ideology as well as its prediction of the rise of China and a technology system much like the Internet.

``We knew we were sitting on a gold mine,'' said Lucia Machado, an executive at Globo Books, adding that sales were double the amount considered a commercial success for a new book in Brazil.

Monteiro Lobato is famous in Brazil for the children's fable ``Adventures of Little Nose.'' The ``Black President,'' when read at all, was criticized for its association with eugenics, a philosophy of human improvement through genetic engineering that was embraced by the Nazis.

The H.G. Wells-like storyline takes place in an age of racial purity, where black people are subjected to selective breeding, forced whitening and sterilization.

Race War

Roy exploits the stalemate between the Homos and Sabinas, political parties representing white men and women respectively, to be elected America's 88th president. It ends in tragedy when the Homos threaten race war and Roy is found dead the morning he is set to assume the presidency.

``If people today are outraged, it's because they should be,'' said Alexandra Montague, a 32-year-old PhD in Brazilian literature from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, who's translating Monteiro Lobato's book into English. ``We know from his correspondence that he sympathized with some of the extreme racial views presented in the novel.''

An example is a passage from Miss Jane, the attractive daughter of the Brazilian scientist whose ``porviroscopio,'' or ``Future Scope,'' allows a glimpse of the segregated U.S.

``Our solution was mediocre,'' says Miss Jane, lamenting what she saw as the economic backwardness caused by forced mixing of European settlers with 3 million African slaves in Brazil, where half the population now considers itself either black or mixed-race. ``It spoiled the two races, by fusing them. The Negro lost his admirable physical qualities of the jungle and the white man suffered an inevitable depression of character.''

Eugenics

Monteiro Lobato's granddaughter, 79-year-old Joyce Campos, said the author flirted with eugenics like many progressive Brazilians of his time. His views shouldn't eclipse his achievements as a writer, public health reformer and early campaigner for the nationalization of Brazil's oil industry, for which he was jailed. ``The Black President'' was intended to stir controversy, she said in a telephone interview from Sao Paulo.

``He always wanted it to be read in the United States but no publisher would touch it,'' said Campos, who was born in New York when Monteiro Lobato served as Brazil's commercial attaché and whose American son-in-law voted for Obama.

Monteiro Lobato was 44 when the book was published in 1926, a few years before he stepped foot in the U.S. for the first time. He died in 1948 at the age of 66.

Montague said she and another Brazilian scholar haven't even completed their English translation and it's already generated interest from several publishers. The two vow a more responsible marketing campaign than was carried out in Italy, where a cover depicts an Obama-like silhouette staring at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue under the subtitle: ``A Black President in the White House?'' The Italian edition sells for 14 euros each.

`Rush to Publish'

``The Italians were in such a rush to publish the book before the U.S. elections that we didn't even sign a contract,'' said Alvaro Gomes, who is representing Monteiro Lobato's descendents in the book's international licensing.

Daphne Patai, a comparative literature professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, said it's absurd for readers to see the book as foreshadowing present-day political developments in the U.S. Unlike Monteiro Lobato's ``bizarre'' view of race relations in the U.S., Obama's rise wasn't the result of racism destroying the surrounding society.

``Publishers for opportunistic reasons will read whatever they want into this work because of Obama,'' said Patai, who wrote a scholarly paper in 1982 on the book. ``But get real: In the 21st century is it at all astonishing that a woman and black would be competing for the U.S. Presidency?''

To contact the reporter on this story: Joshua Goodman in Rio de Janeiro jgoodman19@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 21, 2008 09:04 EST