Classic Final (Mário de Andrade)

“Macunaíma” by Mário de Andrade

He told all this to the man and then opened sails for Lisbon. And that man is me, folks, and I stayed to tell you this story. That’s why I came here. I squatted down on these here leaves, checked myself for ticks, strummed my guitar and, plucking roughly, I took my voice out into the world singing with impure speech the words and deeds of Macunaíma, the hero of our people.

There’s nuthin more.

The above is the ending of Macunaíma, published in 1928, which is considered one of the foundational texts of Brazilian modernism. The language in the text is both poetic and full of slang and the common language of the people, along with plenty of idioms and colloquialisms. Both plot and language weave together Tupi and Portuguese in an attempt to create a purely Brazilian “rhapsody” (de Andrade’s word).