SOURCE: Nunes, Zita. “Anthropology and Race in Brazilian Modernism.” In Colonial Discourse/Postcolonial Theory, edited by Francis Barker, Peter Hulme, and Margaret Iversen, pp. 115-25. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994.

In the following essay, Nunes contends that most Brazilian literature is deeply concerned with the definition of a national identity.

                    Pouca saúde e muita saúva                     Os males do Brasil sao. 

With fewer ants and better health Brazil will lead the world in wealth.

(Mario de Andrade, Macunaíma)¹

The question, ‘What is Brazil(ian)?’, has informed much of Brazilian writing, be it political, sociological or historical. For literary critics and theorists, however, defining this identity has become, according to the critic Angel Rama, a patriotic mission, making out of literature the appropriate instrument for forging a national identity (Rama 1982, p. 13). Literature, then, is central not only to the reflection but also to the formation of a national...