Macunaíma (novel)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Macunaíma is a 1928 novel by Brazilian writer Mário de Andrade. It is one of the founding texts of Brazilian modernism.
The novel follows a young man, Macunaíma, "a hero without a character," born in the Brazilian jungle and possessing strange and remarkable abilities, as he travels to São Paulo and back again. The novel employs a composite structure using elements of what would later be called magic realism and a number of dialects of both interior Brazil and São Paulo. It is based on Andrade's research in the language, culture, folklore, and music of the indigenous peoples in Brazil.
In 1969, the Brazilian production company Filmes do Serro made a film based on the novel, but with a substantially different storyline. The story takes place in Rio de Janeiro rather than São Paulo, and is set at more or less the time the film was made.
