BRAZILIAN LITERATURE: TWENTIETH-CENTURY URBAN FICTION

Brazil is the home of one of the great literary traditions of the world. Indeed, Brazil publishes more literature annually than the other major Latin American countries put together. While it is true that a respectable amount of Brazilian literature has been translated into English, few Brazilian authors receive scholarly attention by any other than a relatively small circle of the academic critics of Brazilian literature and culture. Machado de Assis is unquestionably well known to those who have an interest in the history of the Latin American novel on the cusp of the twentieth century, as he is considered the finest novelistoften compared with Balzacto have emerged up until that time in Latin America. Clarice Lispector, after Machado, the most translated author from Brazil (the University of Texas Press has kept her works in print for approximately fifty years), is crucial to any examination of literary feminism in Latin America, and the French feminist theorist Hlne Cixous has done much to promote her reputation as the one author who most adheres to Cixouss conception of an criture feminine.