Abstract

At the start of her latest book, Lúcia Sá explains the intellectual trajectory that led her to a study of the Latin American megacities of Mexico City and São Paulo by way of Mário de Andrade’s Macunaíma: “in order to recover his muiraquitã, the eponymous Mário de Andrade traveled from one end of Brazil to the other, the Amazon to São Paulo, and in a sense, having completed Rain Forest Literatures (2004), this is what I have attempted to do in this study” (x). Such a work, following one on the literatures of the Amazon, underscores Sá’s admirable commitment to exploring the literary and cultural extremes of her native Brazil, while at the same time incorporating other materials that make a more comparative discussion with internal indigenous cultural elements or other Latin American societies possible.

Highlights

  • At the start of her latest book, Lúcia Sá explains the intellectual trajectory that led her to a study of the Latin American megacities of Mexico City and São Paulo by way of Mário de Andrade’s Macunaíma: “in order to recover his muiraquitã, the eponymous Mário de Andrade traveled from one end of Brazil to the other, the Amazon to São Paulo, and in a sense, having completed Rain Forest Literatures (2004), this is what I have attempted to do in this study” (x)

  • In setting up the thematic framework for this work, Sá remarks on how her first visit to Mexico City “provoked a certain sensation of déjà vu” (1); after all, these are Latin America’s two largest cities and for that reason alone they merit this sort of comparative cultural analysis

  • It might be unfair to other urban spaces in the region to attribute to these two cities what might be called a form of megalopolitan exceptionalism, as there are other urban conglomerations that would qualify within any strict definition of a Latin American megalopolis

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Summary

Introduction

Life in the Megalopolis: Mexico City and São Paulo. At the start of her latest book, Lúcia Sá explains the intellectual trajectory that led her to a study of the Latin American megacities of Mexico City and São Paulo by way of Mário de Andrade’s Macunaíma: “in order to recover his muiraquitã, the eponymous Mário de Andrade traveled from one end of Brazil to the other, the Amazon to São Paulo, and in a sense, having completed Rain Forest Literatures (2004), this is what I have attempted to do in this study” (x).

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Conclusion

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