Macunaíma: The Hero With No Character

‘Mário wrote our Odyssey &, with a swing of his native club, created our classical hero & the national poetic idiom for the next 50 years.’ — Oswald de Andrade 

A brilliant new translation of the Brazilian modernist epic that aims to capture the country's complex identity

Here at last is an exciting new edition of the Brazilian modernist epic Macunaíma: The Hero with No Character, by Mário de Andrade. This landmark 1928 novel follows the adventures of the shapeshifting Macunaíma and his brothers as they leave their Amazon home for a whirlwind tour of Brazil, cramming four centuries and a continental expanse into a single mythic plane. Having lost a magic amulet, the hero and his brothers journey to São Paulo to retrieve the talisman that has fallen into the hands of an Italo-Peruvian captain of industry (who is also a cannibal giant). Written over six delirious days—the fruit of years of study—Macunaíma magically synthesizes dialect, folklore, anthropology, mythology, flora, fauna, & pop culture to examine Brazilian identity. This brilliant translation by Katrina Dodson has been many years in the making & includes an extensive section of notes providing essential background information for this magnificent work.

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Mário de Andrade (Oct. 9, 1893–Feb. 25, 1945) was a poet, novelist, critic, musician, photographer, etc., & arguably the most important figure in Brazilian modernism. He was a central instigator of the 1922 Semana de Arte Moderna (Modern Art Week). De Andrade lived almost his entire life in São Paulo, where he played a central role in shaping the avant-garde sensibilities of nearly every field of Brazilian art.

Katrina Dodson’s translation of The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector was awarded the 2016 PEN Translation Prize, the Lewis Galantière Award, & a North California Book Award. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley.