Brazil in Latin America: in front of an idea of world literature

Abstract

This article analyzes where Brazilian literature stands in the race to be part of world literature. From the very imposition of an economy conceived of in a global relationship, manifest in the word globalization, Goethe’s proposition of a world literature is the starting point for the study of Brazilian literature’s standing within this sphere. It has been noted that to allot a peripheral share of the world’s common nest egg to Latin American literatures is not enough to include it in the “world” forum, let alone to implement what Spivak calls “a clean competition.” More specifically, it is important to think about the case of Brazil within Latin America, whose position is thus doubly peripheral within the scope of world literature. Nevertheless, Brazilian literature has achieved other resonances, from the studies of Franco Moretti to the new publications of Machado de Assis in the United States, which gives visibility to the Brazilian criticism addressing these issues.