O fio da navalha: Graciliano Ramos e a revista Cultura Política

Author(s)

Thiago Mio Salla

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola de Comunicações e Artes (ECA/SBD)
• Defense date: 2010-03-17

Examining board members

Ivan Prado Teixeira; Valentim Aparecido Facioli; Mayra Rodrigues Gomes; José de Paula Ramos Júnior; Antonio Medina Rodrigues

• Advisor: Ivan Prado Teixeira

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyze the Northeastern portraits that Graciliano Ramos published in the magazine Cultura Política [Political Culture], the main publication of Estado Novos Departamento de Imprensa e Propaganda [New States Department of Press and Propaganda], or DIP, from March 1941 to May 1943. Given the material nature of such writings, that is, the fact that they were publicized in a specific time and editorial medium, we seek to examine their (consonant and dissonant) effects on the official publication, as well as the strategies used by the artist to move about on a political minefield during the regime initiated in 1937. As it is inferred from the analysis of the very texts and from the cultural debates in which they took part, it can be noticed that the writer, at that moment, seemed to be balancing on a razors edge: if, on the one hand, he was urged to cooperate, on the other, his fear of committing himself to the postulates of the dictatorship is perceived in the topics he selected and in the genre and style he adopted in his Quadros e costumes do Nordeste [Northeastern portraits and customs] (title of the section in which such texts were initially printed). At the same time, expanding the corpus of Graciliano Ramos writings, this study also makes available, as an appendix, a proposal for editing 58 texts by the author, not yet published in book, gathered during our fieldwork in various Brazilian archives. They consist of chronicles, articles, letters, speeches and even an excerpt of a play, still unknown to the general public, which help to delineate a more accurate profile of the artist and his work as a whole. (AU)