Book, Mário De Andrade by himself[LS]

Language: Brazilian Portuguese. Mário de Andrade's card-writing work, not yet fully published, is already recognized as a literary monument, worthy of featuring with pride in any language.. This multifaceted character, who immodestly defined himself as "three hundred", "three hundred and fifty", was also the protagonist of an unprecedented experience, that of director of the Department of Culture and Recreation of the city of São Paulo between 1935 and 1938.. The letters he sent to Paulo Duarte, his companion in this political adventure, are passionate, confessional and very enlightening about the conditions in which an unlikely intervention of political power in the public machine was implemented to promote access to culture for individuals deprived of leisure in a city that worships work.. Paulo Duarte conceived the Department of Culture and had the additional merit of calling on Mário de Andrade, Sérgio Milliet and Rubens Borba de Moraes to lead it. He reserved the role of project tutor for himself, installed in the office of the enlightened mayor Fábio Prado.. It was three exciting years of dedication, discovery and achievement.. However, the experiment did not pay off.. It was sterilized by the Estado Novo dictatorship. Mário will regret in the letters that he was not able to institutionalize the Department of Culture.. Would this have been possible in a country that never completed the integration of its population into a society with basic rights? Mário de Andrade experienced the drama of the Department of Culture as a personal defeat. And he even declared: "The Department is my tomb". This book is by Mário de Andrade, but also by Paulo Duarte, united in a common passion for the power of culture as a factor of social emancipation.