Blaise Cendrars and the Nietzschean Roots of Multiracial Identity in Stefan Zweig's Brazil: Land of the Future

Abstract

This article aims to provide a better understanding of the complexities involving Stefan Zweig's Brazil: Land of the Future (1941) by analyzing Zweig's encounter with Brazil in relation to that of the French modernist Blaise Cendrars. Rather than search for traces of Cendrars's writings in those of Zweig, however, the goal is to interpret their work within the broader context of the intellectual debate on race and identity in Brazil. While much has been written about Cendrars's impact on Brazilian modernism, his contribution to the development of the concept of Brazil's multiracial identity has received little attention. This article shows that Cendrars introduced a different approach to racial mixture in Brazil that was influenced by the work of Nietzsche. A connection to Cendrars's role in the construction of Brazil's multiracial national identity allows for a better understanding of Zweig's laudatory portrayal of Brazil as the land of the future.