Publisher's Synopsis
In one of his most intriguing poems, Carlos Drummond de Andrade provides inspiration for this current volume of Portuguese Literary & Cultural Studies - Brazil 2001: A Revisionary History of Brazilian Literature and Culture. The poem, called ""Hino Nacional,"" is a paradoxical reconstruction of variegated efforts aimed at the building of the nation. In the final lines of the poem, however, it is ""Brazil"" - as an impossible Kantian thing-in-itself - that emerges and refuses all attempts to grasp its essence:Brazil does not want us! It is sick and tired of us!Our Brazil is in the afterworld. This is not Brazil.There is no Brazil. By any chance, are there Brazilians?
