This is the first volume of critical essays in English on the much-studied Lima Barreto. Each chapter explores not only his life and vast body of work but also the historical and societal conditions in which his literary voice emerged.

Introduction By Lamonte Aidoo and Daniel F. Silva Chapter 1: Lima Barreto and Gender: An Inter-American Perspective By Earl E. Fitz Chapter 2: Race and Sex in Lima Barreto and Charles Chesnutt: a Comparative Politics Between Brazil and the United States By Renata R. M. Wasserman Chapter 3: The ‘Coloniality of Power’ and the Fictional Biography of an Obscure Bureaucrat in Lima Barreto’s Vida e Morte de M. J. Gonzaga de Sá By Nelson H. Vieira Chapter 4: Lima Barreto and the Mimetic Experience: Agency, Literature, and Madness in the Brazil of the First Republic By Lilia Moritz Schwarcz Chapter 5: A Pan-African Activist at the Turn of the 20th Century: Lima Barreto and the Denunciation of Racial Prejudice in Brazil and the United States By Emanuelle K. F. Oliveira Chapter 6: Climbing the Social Ladder as a Tragic Farce in Brazil at the Turn of the Century in Machado de Assis’ “The Nurse,” Lima Barreto’s “The Man Who Spoke Javanese,” and Monteiro Lobato’s “The Funnyman Who Repented” By Paulo da-Luz-Moreira Chapter 7: Extraordinary Delusions: the Madness of Capital in Lima Barreto’s writings By Vivaldo A. Santos Chapter 8: “Fatally Condemned to Wander”: Lima Barreto’s Nonfiction Journalism and Testimonials By Robert Anderson Chapter 9: From Synthesis to Difference: Lima Barreto’s Parodic Ufanismo By Luiz Fernando Valente Chapter 10: Reading Lima Barreto against Lima Barreto By Mário Higa Chapter 11: Freyreans, Marxists, and the “Labyrinth of Nations”: Lima Barreto and His Critics By Marc A. Hertzman Chapter 12: Men in their Own Wor(l)ds: Lima Barreto and the Narration of Masculinity By Talia Gúzman-González

Comprising 12 essays on Brazilian writer Afonso Henriques de Lima Barreto (1881-1921), this volume opens with an introduction by Aidoo and Silva. In a translated essay on agency, literature, and madness, social anthropologist Lilia Moritz Schwarcz sets the parameters for understanding Lima Barreto's role as both leading author of his day and marginalized, bitter critic of poverty, race, social hierarchy, and politics. Other essays place Lima Barreto, who was troubled by alcoholism and mental illness, in a pan-American context through comparisons with North American literature (essays by Earl Fitz and Renata Wasserman); foreground him as a spokesman against endo-colonialist structures (Nelson Vieira, Vivaldo Santos, Emanuelle K. F. Oliveira); and question his dual position as educated critic and victim of racism (Marc Hertzman, Mário Higa). Luiz Fernando Valente studies Lima Barreto's famous parody of patriotism, and Paulo da-Luz-Moreira considers his humor in the story 'The Man Who Spoke Javanese' against farces by Machado de Assis and Monteiro Lobato. . . .Summing Up: Recommended.