Sao Paulo (Brazil)

Sao Paulo is famous for its nightlife. Guidebooks list the city’s 13,000 restaurants, 15,000 bars and nightclubs, all in a variety of styles, providing entertainment for locals and visitors alike. Other tourist spots include the Rua Oscar Freire shopping street and many architectural monuments, including the Monastery of St. Benedict, located in the heart of the city.

The first Jesuit missions in Brazil, founded in the early 16th century, were located in Sao Paulo. The Jesuits wrote many reports to the Portuguese crown about the newly discovered country, its inhabitants and their poetry and music. Among them were works by Manuel da Nobrega and José di Anchieta, who lived in or near the colony of Piratininghi. Thanks to them, many works in the Tupi language were written down, in particular textbooks on the lexicon and grammar of this language.

In 1922, the Brazilian modernist movement, centered in São Paulo, attempted to achieve cultural independence in various ways. Brazil went through the same stages of development as the rest of Latin America, but its political and cultural independence was more difficult to achieve. Brazil’s first emperor, Pedro I, was a member of the Portuguese royal dynasty, and Brazil remained under imperial rule until 1889. Because of its ties to Portuguese culture, Brazilian writers have portrayed the nature and multicultural character of Brazil rather poorly.

The presence of a large number of former slaves, however, gave a distinctively African character to the culture, and successive waves of immigrants from different parts of Europe helped the country create its own literary style and identity. The classic modernists in Brazilian literature were writers such as Mário de Andrade and Oswald de Andrade.