Brazilian Science Fiction: Cultural Myths and Nationhood in the Land of the Future

M. Elizabeth Ginway

2004
288 pages
ISBN 0-8387-5564-
LC 2003020553

M. Elizabeth Ginway argues that science fiction, because of its links to science and technology, is the consummate literary vehicle for examining the perception and cultural impact of the modernization process in Brazil, 1960 - 2000. A reading of Brazilian science fiction, based on its use of paradigms of Anglo-American science fiction and myths of Brazilian nationhood, provides a unique look into Brazil's modern metamorphosis. The earliest period of the 1960s is characterized by mostly anti-technological, apolitical science fiction as a way of affirming myths of Brazilian identity. A second group of authors emerging in the 1970s uses science fiction to protest the military regime, creating dystopian worlds in which the myths of Brazilian culture serve as touchstones to criticize various ills associated with urbanization, industrialization, and repression. The third group, emerging in the mid-1980s after the dictatorship, offers a more complex, postmodern view of Brazilian society, its continuing social problems, and the phenomenon of globalization. Illustrated.

Reviews
Brazilian Science Fiction placed on Top Recommended Non-Fiction Reading List by Locus: Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy #529 (Feb. 2005)

Locus editor Charles N. Brown writes that Ginway's is "the first full-length study in English and it's fascinating."

Gary K. Wolfe considers Brazilian Science Fiction as contributing "the most to add[ing] to our understanding of science fiction as a multi-cultural phenomenon."

Ginway's approach offers "a valuable tool in the understanding of recent Brazilian science fiction literature" and is a "remarkable pioneering work." --Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro in Extrapolation, Spring 2005 (46:1).

"Brazilian Science Fiction: Cultural Myths and Nationhood in the Land of the Future is an in-depth discussion of Brazilian science fiction and what it has to tell us about Brazilian culture and society by Professor Portuguese and Brazilian literature M. Elizabeth Ginway. Chapters examine the cross-narrative icons of the robot, the alien, the spaceship, and the wasteland; dystopian science fiction; reflections on the changing roles of women; and influences of the post-dictatorship Brazilian generation and its delvings into "hard" SF, cyberpunk, alien encounters, alternate histories and parallel universes, and more. Black-and-white photographs of science fiction book covers illustrate this thoughtful and thorough examination which is especially recommended for academic library literary studies collections." (The Midwest Book Review, September 2005)

About the author:

Elizabeth Ginway is Associate Professor of Portuguese and Brazilian literature at the University of Florida.