Macounaima

Blurb

Macunaíma is a 1928 novel by Brazilian writer Mário de Andrade. It is one of the founding texts of Brazilian modernism.
The novel follows a young man, Macunaíma, "a hero without a character," born in the Brazilian jungle and possessing strange and remarkable abilities, as he travels to São Paulo and back again. The novel employs a composite structure using elements of what would later be called magic realism and a number of dialects of both interior Brazil and São Paulo. It is based on Andrade's research in language, culture, folklore, and music of the indigenous peoples in Brazil.
Macunaíma was an attempt on the part of Andrade to write a novel which represented pan-Brazilian culture and language. At the time it was customary in Brazil to speak a language which was a combination of Portuguese and native Brazilian words, but the written word was done entirely in formal Portuguese. Andrade desired to write Macunaíma in the spoken language of Brazil. Macunaíma's catch phrase "Ai, que preguiça!" is a pun in both Tupi language and Portuguese as "Ai" is a Tupi word for sloth and "preguiça" is Portuguese for sloth. This is an example of Andrade using a fused language to write this text.