Brazil

Abstract

This chapter examines the development of the Arabic novel in Brazil. Arab immigrants who went to Brazil to work as peddlers were labeled turcos, a term that has given rise to the most enduring stereotype of Arabs in Brazil. After discussing the beginnings of Arab immigration in Brazil and the rest of the American hemisphere, the chapter considers some of the novels written in Arabic by immigrants in Brazil. Next, it discusses Lusophone Arab Brazilian novelists who have written about Arab immigration or ethnicity. Their novels can be roughly divided into three groups: works by immigrants’ children that depict the immigrant experience, often nostalgically; works that analyze the conflicts of immigrants’ children as they integrate themselves into Brazilian society; and works that enact a countermovement toward Arab culture on the part of third-generation Arab Brazilians.