Topics in Brazilian Literature II (Half-Term): Lima Barreto

This is an introduction to Lima Barreto (1881-1922). The 100th anniversary of his death coincided with the 100 years of the "Semana de Arte Moderna," a landmark of Modernism in Brazil. Unike the Spanish American "vanguardias," Brazilian Modernism was influenced by the primitivism of the European avant-garde, which saw Black and Indigenous people as the unconscious bearers of modernity. We study how Barreto's literature, which explored popular orality and religions, was expelled from the literary cannon and how the author has re-emerged as one of the most meaningful Black voices of the Brazilian Republic.