The Brazilian novel from 1850 to 1900

The Travels of Naturalism and the Challenges of a World Literary History

“…Other Argentine writers joined him in following Zola’s example, including Juan Antonio Argerich and Manuel Podestá (Benítez‐Rojo 471–2). Aluísio Azevedo’s The Mulatto ( O Mulato , 1881) is typically considered the first example of naturalism (p. naturalismo ) in Brazilian fiction, followed by other novels such as Júlio Ribeiro’s The Flesh ( A Carne , 1888), Azevedo’s The Tenement ( O Cortiço , 1890), and Adolfo Caminha’s The Black Man and the Cabin Boy ( Bom‐Crioulo , 1895) (Haberly 147–51). Argentine and Brazilian writers self‐consciously invoked Zola to mark out their positions against other tendencies in the novel.…”

“…It reigned unchallenged until the arrival of naturalism, which took the fore in the absence of other established varieties of realism. The victory was not complete: naturalistic and romantic techniques of representation coexisted uneasily, sometimes in the same work, and when the naturalist novel appeared later in other Latin American countries it sometimes also integrated the emerging techniques of modernismo (Benítez‐Rojo 429–30, 469; Brushwood 16–20; Bueno 364–67; Haberly 147–9).…”