Lima Barreto: a postcolonial rereading of the author’s work

Authors

  • Antônio Márcio Da Silva University of Kent. Department of Hispanic Studies. Canterbury, UK, CT2 7NF.

Keywords:

Lima Barreto, Postcolonialism, Brazilian Literature, Nationalism, Language, Women,

Abstract

This study conducts a postcolonial rereading of Lima Barreto’s work in order to understand the themes discussed by him and how he relates them to the existing problems in Brazil of his time. The analysis engages with Barreto’s work in its entirety—novels, some of his tales and short stories—aiming to show how different elements of his work provide information to understand a postcolonial country, in theory, but that, at the same time, seems to have perpetuated the colonial structures in practice. Therefore, this study focuses on five themes in particular that have been recurrent in postcolonial studies: language, women, nationalism, social class and race, as they provide various elements needed to the discussion being undertaken and contribute to the rereading proposed in this research.

Author Biography

Antônio Márcio Da Silva, University of Kent. Department of Hispanic Studies. Canterbury, UK, CT2 7NF.

Antônio M. da Silva é a coordenador de Português na University of Kent, onde também leciona literatura, cinema e cultura dos países falantes de português e Língua Portuguesa. Suas publicações incluem a monografia O fatale The ‘femme’ fatale in Brazilian cinema: Challenging Hollywood norms (Palgrave, 2014), contribuições para os livros Directory of World Cinema: Brazil (Intellect, 2013) and World Film Locations: São Paulo (Intellect, 2013). Seus principais interesses de pesquisa incluem a representação de construções de gênero, sexualidade e raça nos cinemas brasileiros e lusófonos, literatura e cultura popular e cinema nacional / mundial e cultura popular, particularmente na década de 1970.

Published

25/06/2015

Issue

Section

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