The freedom of the new: Brazilian literary avant-garde and post-avant-garde movements and their decolonizing function

Abstract

This article examines Brazilian literary avant-gardes and post-avant-gardes of the twentieth century as aesthetic projects with a clear decolonizing function, aimed at constructing an autonomous cultural identity in opposition to European models. The authors argue that Latin American avant-gardes can only be fully understood when situated within the historical conditions of cultural dependency produced by colonial legacies. Within this framework, the study seeks to broaden both the spatial and temporal boundaries of avant-garde studies by incorporating the Brazilian case—often marginalized due to linguistic and cultural barriers—and by extending the concept of the avant-garde beyond the early decades of the twentieth century. The analysis is structured around three key moments: the 1922 Week of Modern Art, understood as the first major break with European academicism; Oswald de Andrade’s Pau-Brasil and Anthropophagic movements, which advocate the critical and creative appropriation of foreign cultural elements; and Concrete Poetry, conceived as a radical decolonization of poetic form, language, and graphic space. The article concludes that these movements not only transformed literary practices but also promoted an active, critical, and transformative vision of Brazilian culture, positioning it as a major contributor to universal literature through a poetics of rupture grounded in identity, hybridity, and creative freedom.