Description: Is Brazil part of Latin America or an island unto itself? As Nossa and Nuestra Amrica: Inter-American Dialogues demonstrates, this question has been debated by Brazilian and Spanish American intellectuals alike since the early nineteenth century, though it has received limited scholarly attention and its answer is less obvious than you might think. This book charts Brazils evolving and often conflicted relationship with the idea of Latin America through a detailed comparative investigation of four crucial Latin American essayists: Uruguayan critic Jos Enrique Rod, Brazilian writer-diplomat Joaquim Nabuco, Mexican humanist Alfonso Reyes, and Srgio Buarque de Holanda, one of Brazils preeminent historians. The author argues that Brazil plays a necessaryand necessarily problematicrole in the intellectual construction of Latin America. Nossa and Nuestra Amrica will be of interest to scholars and students of Latin American and Luso-Brazilian literature and ideas, and to anyone interested in rethinking comparative approaches to literary texts written in Portuguese and Spanish.
Review Quotes: Scholars of literature seek to bridge the gap between Spanish and Portuguese traditions in Latin America, that is, for Brazil and the rest of Latin America to recognize each other as neighbors. They discuss counterposing nossa and nuestra America; Iberoamerica, the Magna Patria, and the question of Brazil; monarchy's end and the South Americanization of Brazil; culture, humanism, and Brazil's place in the American utopia; and obscured by roots of Rodo in Raizes do Brasil. (Annotation (c)2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)