Embodying the nation

Abstract

Since its independence from Portugal in 1822, Brazil has had an impressive number of influential literary figures to become diplomats, conducting official negotiations between Brazil and other nations. Writers such as Domingos José Gonçalves de Magalhães, Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen, Manuel de Oliveira Lima, João Cabral de Melo Neto, João Guimarães Rosa and Vinicius de Moraes to name only a few have all represented Brazil through its Ministry of External Affairs, Itamaraty. These writers evoke a politics of national representation in the literary and diplomatic fields, navigating not only the world of international politics, but also coming into close contact with other literatures and cultures, as they work abroad. In this way, diplomacy places them in an advantageous position from which distinct literary perspectives on Brazilian history and identity can be conceived in a comparative light. This work is roughly divided into two sections. The first half contextualizes the writer-diplomat tradition in Brazil from the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. This portion of my study considers the role of important intellectual institutions in the consolidation of this tradition, such as the Instituto Histórico Geográfico Brasileiro (founded in 1838) and the Academia Brasileira de Letras (founded in 1897). Following this broad theoretical and historical contextualization, the second half analyzes specific literary works by three writer-diplomats from the immediate post-World War II period within the contexts of their diplomatic careers: João Guimarães Rosa, Vinicius de Moraes and João Cabral de Melo Neto. The study of the relationship between literature and diplomacy in Brazil not only reveals insight into the development of themes and narratives of certain authors’ works, but also helps to further clarify many of the colonial and global aspects of Latin America’s interconnected politico-cultural histories and identities.