Racial Democracy in Literary Works

This book investigates the way in which African- American and Afro-Brazilian prose fictions perceive and critique the concept of racial democracy in Brazil. African-Americans view Brazil as a paradise to escape segregation and violence in the 1920s since Brazilian government exports this idea about the country. In the 1960s and 1970s there is a change in their perspective as some African-Americans visit Brazil. They realize and question racial harmony as they conclude it is a veiled racism and disillusionment. Some Afro-Brazilian writers at first portrait Afro-Brazilian characters as oppressed and marginalized but they are not fully aware of that since there has never been any institutionalized segregation. Later in the 1960s and 1970s Afro- Brazilians' movements flourish influenced by American's movement bringing self-awareness and a sense of identity to deconstruct the myth of racial democracy.