The Cannibal Manifesto

by Oswald de Andrade

Cannibal Manifesto (also known as the Brazilwood Manifesto) was written in 1928 by Oswald de Andrade, a member of the Brazilian art movement known as Modernist, which began in 1923.

Genres: Brazil, Poetry, Nonfiction, Essays

11 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1928

About the author

José Oswald de Andrade Souza (January 11, 1890 – October 22, 1954) was a Brazilian poet and polemicist. He was born and spent most of his life in São Paulo.
Andrade was one of the founders of Brazilian modernism and a member of the Group of Five, along with Mário de Andrade, Anita Malfatti, Tarsila do Amaral and Menotti del Picchia. He participated in the Week of Modern Art (Semana de Arte Moderna).
Andrade is best known for his manifesto of Brazilian nationalism, Manifesto Antropófago (Cannibal Manifesto), published in 1928. Its argument is that Brazil's history of "cannibalizing" other cultures is its greatest strength, while playing on the modernists' primitivist interest in cannibalism as an alleged tribal rite. Cannibalism becomes a way for Brazil to assert itself against European postcolonial cultural domination. The Manifesto's iconic line is "Tupi or not Tupi: that is the question." The line is simultaneously a celebration of the Tupi, who had been at times accused of cannibalism (most notoriously by Hans Staden), and an instance of cannibalism: it eats Shakespeare.
Born into a wealthy family, Andrade used his money and connections to support numerous modernist artists and projects. He sponsored the publication of several major novels of the period, produced a number of experimental plays, and supported several painters, including Tarsila do Amaral, with whom he had a long affair, and Lasar Segall. His role in the modernist community was made somewhat awkward, however, by his feud with Mário de Andrade, which lasted from 1929 (after Oswald de Andrade published a pseudonymous essay mocking Mário for effeminacy) until Mário de Andrade's untimely death in 1945.

Reviews

[Abril · Rating 2 out of 5]

RIP Oswald you would love las chicas de pinterest usando la metáfora del canibalismo para hablar del amor

[Alaska Lee]

"Nunca fuimos catequizados. Vivimos a través de un derecho sonámbulo".

"Contra el mundo reversible y las ideas objetivadas. Cadaverizadas. El stop del pensamiento que es dinámico. El individuo víctima del sistema. Fuente de las injusticias clásicas. De las injusticias románticas. Y el olvido de las conquistas interiores".

"Sólo no hay determinismo donde hay misterio. ¿Pero qué nos importa eso?"

Me es difícil calificar un discurso, por lo que las notas me sobran en esta ocasión.
Lenguaje brillante y lectura retadora. En definitiva, no para los de estómagos frágiles ni mentes egocéntricas.

Muy bueno.

[muthuvel · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Only where there is mystery is there no determinism. But what does that
have to do with us?"

"Down with the histories of Man that begin at Cape Finisterre. The undated world. Unrubrified. Without Napoleon. Without Caesar."

"The determination of progress by catalogues and television sets. Only machinery. And blood transfusions."

"Before the Portuguese discovered Brazil, Brazil had discovered happiness."

"Low cannibalism, agglomerated with the sins of catechism? Envy, usury, calumny, murder. We are acting against this plague of a supposedly cultured and Christianized peoples. Cannibals."

[Fact100 · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Tupi or not tupi, that is the question."

[mauro di carlo · Rating 4 out of 5]

es algo muy corto y que quiero leer otra vez y otra vez
pero en esencia es manifiesto decolonial brasileño, que no hay que hacer carnaval cultural con lo llegado de europa sino lo contrario, devorarla, ser canibal, como cuando se comieron al obsipo Sardinha….

[Georgia · Rating 5 out of 5]

lovely

[Dani · Rating 3 out of 5]

I draw the line at babies.

[Jules · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The struggle between what we might call the Uncreated and the Creation—​ Illustrated by the permanent contradiction between Man and his Taboo. Ev­eryday love and the capitalist way of life. Cannibalism. Absorption of the sacred enemy. To transform him into a totem. The human adventure. The earthly goal. Even so, only the pure elites managed to realize carnal cannibalism, which carries within itself the highest meaning of life and avoids all the ills identified by Freud—​­ catechist ills. What results is not a sublimation of the sexual instinct. It is the thermometrical scale of the cannibal instinct."

[Mar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un clásico para entender las vanguardias latinoamericanas e ideal para las charlas de decolonialidad. De andrade escribe de una forma juguetona que ridiculiza el "pensamiento correcto", es una lectura interesante y aunque es corta, se debe digerir bien para entender la mayoría de sus referencias. Recomendaría saber del contexto histórico y artístico donde nace el manifiesto.

[Leila Aedo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Todos nos tendríamos que deshacer de la filosofía, dejar de dejarla que se meta siempre no solo en nuestros pensamientos, sino también en nuestras obras. Quitándole los nombres de los veinte filósofos a los que alude Oswald en su tesis, el resto del libro es tan pero tan lindo de leer.

[Lily Hardie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super super interesting , will write proper review at some point ..

[Vick]

Corto, entretenido y desafiante. Voy a tener que revisitarlo varias veces pero presenta ideas muy intrigantes

[Victor F. · Rating 4 out of 5]

(it's not properly a 'book', but it is extremely valuable!)