Covering nearly two centuries of cultural production, this compelling collection brings together critical readings from the genesis of Afro-Brazilian literary studies alongside some of Brazil’s most vital contemporary voices. From nineteenth-century pioneer Maria Firmina dos Reis to the boundary-breaking trans performer Linn da Quebrada, the contributions to this book trace a powerful lineage of Black intellectual, artistic, and political expression.

The authors engage urgently with questions of identity and the enduring realities of racism in Brazilian society, while confronting why race remains both central and controversial in Brazil’s cultural imagination. The contributors illuminate how Afro-Brazilian writers, artists, and thinkers have continually forged spaces to create, theorize, and assert their own subjectivities—challenging erasure and reclaiming Black agency. By mapping this expansive tradition across literature, music, and cultural thought, this book reveals not only the richness of Afro-Brazilian creativity, but also why Brazil still struggles to fully embrace its Blackness. Both historically grounded and sharply contemporary, it is an essential exploration of race, culture, and resistance in Brazil that will speak to scholars not just of Brazil but also of Latin America and the African diaspora.

Cristina Ferreira Pinto-Bailey has taught at the University of Texas at Austin, Texas State University, and Pontifícia Universidade Católica–Rio Grande do Sul. Her scholarly work and literary translations appear in Latin American Literature Today, Absinthe, Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas, Revistabrasileira de literatura comparada, Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures, and other venues. 

Paulo Dutra is Associate Professor of Portuguese and Spanish at the University of New Mexico. He is the author of Aversão oficial: resumida (Malê, 2018), abliterações (Malê, 2019), and Oalívioda influência: Machado, Borgese Cervantes na América Latina (EDUFES).