Miss Macunaíma

A rare, bold, and plural novel, Miss Macunaíma recreates the mythology of the hero without any character and imagines new facets of its author, Mário de Andrade.

Miss Macunaíma is a historical-magical novel that invokes the life and work of Mário de Andrade, one of the greatest names in Brazilian literature. Alexandre Rabelo invites us to follow the final steps of a little-known Mário, systematically erased in his most intimate questions, such as his parents' African origins and his dissident sexuality. Through letters to real-life recipients, such as Tarsila do Amaral and Carlos Drummond de Andrade, and fictional ones, he imagines key moments in the author's career, culminating in the crisis caused by his breakup with his longtime partner and friend Oswald de Andrade, which occurred after a satire titled "Miss Macunaíma," published in the Revista de Antropologia ( Anthropology Magazine), which depicted Mário as a socialite and about which he remained silent until his death.

Evoking modernist experimentation in a writing that diversifies chapter by chapter, blending literary language, comics, illustrations, and musical references, we are invited, between letters, to immerse ourselves in dreams, sometimes nightmares, where Mário finds himself confronted with evaluating his own creations, which return to tell him more historical versions of what happened to Macunaíma. We meet his two brothers, Jiguê, the silly warrior, and Maanape, the sorcerer, and also enter the conversations of his father, an African griot of the Mandingo culture. These journeys, seemingly isolated in often contradictory voices, are intertwined in a captivating narrative.

On the centenary of the 1922 Modern Art Week, Miss Macunaíma is an opportunity to revisit the supposedly heroic legacy of the artists and agitators who took part in the movement, and it is an invitation to celebrate Mário de Andrade's perspective, including the way in which his lucidity about the (non)character of Brazilians continues to serve as a cracked mirror for us.

"A monumental, acerbic, historical work. Rabelo looks at time, the land, and its people with a rare courage and lucidity, which also extends to language, awakening within the lyrical word a toothy immensity." - Aline Bei

"An ode to Mário de Andrade, a restrained character in life, but who, thanks to Rabelo's imagination, here reveals himself completely: gay, black, a man caught between his pains and passions. Miss Macunaíma is a fascinating novel!" - Itamar Vieira Junior