History and Literature in the search for identity in Latin America in the twentieth century: the vision of Richard Morse

Abstract

This essay focuses on the Latin Americanist and Brazilianist production of the 1990s on the issue of identity in Latin America and Brazil, with emphasis on interpretation of the North American historian Richard Morse in "The Multiverse of Latin American Identity, c.1920-c. 1970," published in 1995, and as yet unpublished in Portuguese. His interpretation is compared with that of British literary critic Gerald Martin, "Narrative since 1920," from 1998. Both provide a panoramic, and at the same time, analytical view of authors and works that reflect on the issue, calling attention to the importance of Modernism, with emphasis on the dialogue between history and literature that characterized the movement.