Brief panorama of 1920s Brazilian novel

Abstract

Our objective in this paper is to establish a brief panorama of the 1920s Brazilian novel, focusing on non-canonical authors and works. The research encompasses volumes of Brazilian literary history published from the mid 20^th century onwards with the goals of both demonstrating which novels of the 1920s were the most cited as well as analyzing the content of the references and evaluations, included therein, about the less prestigious fictional production. From this survey emerge, among other questions, the analysis of the trends and issues regarding historiographic endeavors in Brazil and the debate about where to situate such authors and novels in relation to the beginnings of Modernism. Theses questions imply the need to review a wider set of fictional works of the time. Thus, this paper focuses on the following authors and their specific novels: from the state of São Paulo, Menotti del Picchia, Monteiro Lobato, and Léo Vaz; from Pernambuco, Lucilo Varejão, Mário Sette, and Luiz Delgado; from Bahia, Afrânio Peixoto and Xavier Marques; from Rio de Janeiro, Gastão Cruls and Chrysanthème; and from Minas Gerais, Godofredo Rangel. Other writers, who published novels between 1920 and 1929, are also mentioned, but not analyzed in the same manner as the aforementioned ones. This paper, fundamentally, recognizes the essential role played by literary historiography in literary studies and attempts to contribute to such field. It both widens the scope of 1920s fictional works being analyzed and encourages the reading (or rereading) of these rich but forgotten materials.