Roberto Schwarz (b. 1938) is the foremost figure in dialectical criticism in Brazil, following in the footsteps of the Maestro Antonio Cãndido; he is a literary critic and retired professor of Literary Theory (IEL-UNICamp). He was born in Austria and settled in São Paulo as a child during the Second World War. The military coup of March 31, 1964 forced him into exile in France in 1969, where he finished his doctoral thesis on Latin American Studies (Université Paris III, 1976). In writings such as those collected here—“Cultura e Política, 1964-1969,” originally published in the Parisian magazine Les Temps Modernes (July 1970)—he explores politics through the prism of society. The famous preface to his thesis “As idéias fora de lugar” (1973), was later included in his book Ao vencedor as batatas (1977), one of his countless studies on the masterly work of a Brazilian writer who wrote from the periphery of capitalism.
Schwarz discusses the historical transformations, political perspectives, and social meaning of art. In his essay, written while in exile in Paris, he analyzes the objective possibilities for action in light of the results of the 1964 military coup and the tightening of the regime’s grip on power through the imposition of AI-5 (the Institutional Law that canceled all civil guarantees in Brazil). As a literary critic—through an analytical review of plays, movies, musical productions, and literary works—he seeks to grasp and understand the country’s mood at that historic moment by probing deeply into the disconnect between Brazil’s left wing culture and the frustration of wanting to take power by revolutionary means.