Literary Mapping of Migration and Multilingualism in São Paulo’s Bom Retiro Neighborhood

Abstract

Abstract This article examines literary representations of migrant experiences in São Paulo, with a focus on the neighborhood of Bom Retiro. To study how Bom Retiro’s migrant communities of Jews, Koreans, and Bolivians demand new forms of multilingualism, I focus on the 2019 Bolivian novel Seúl, São Paulo by Gabriel Mamani Magne in comparison to Eliezer Levin’s 1972 novel Bom Retiro: o bairro da infância. Whereas Levin employs restricted multilingualism to depict a Jewish diaspora rooted in Brazil, Mamani Magne focuses on migratory flows between Bolivia and more prosperous Latin American countries. By occasionally incorporating unmarked Portuguese and Aymara words into his Spanish prose, Mamani Magne illustrates how movement between languages and places unsettles fixed forms of identity. Taken together, Bom Retiro and Seúl, São Paulo depict how multilingual gestures as part of a minor transnationalism reveal the hierarchies and misunderstandings that constitute life in the global city of São Paulo.