Lima Barreto's Marginália: The Magazine Writer's Dream

Abstract

This article analyses Lima Barreto's lifelong relationship with magazines not only as a contributor, but also as a founder, editor, and even collector of these ephemeral publications. His debut in 1902 as a writer for his college magazine, A Lanterna, and his death in 1922 while contributing to A.B.C. and Careta, can be considered symbolic events that epitomize the birth and death of a career wholeheartedly dedicated to this métier. A central argument is that it is highly significant that Barreto published his works in magazines more often than in newspapers. To him, magazines were stores of rhetorical weapons, artefacts that could confront the intellectual values established and concentrated in Rio de Janeiro.