Saudades Do Brasil: A Photographic Memoir

Clause-Levi-Strauss is a reference for generations since the publication of his studies about kinship, in which he developed his theories about structure and after that, some of our intellectual fields have never been the same again. An intellectual like him can be very important for a science in a country, and he has influenced most of Brazilian anthropologists since then. But this marvellous photographic and literary essay reaveals that a country can also be very important for a young sociologist that would became one of the guidelines of the contemporary thpught. The young intellectual born in Belgium arrived in Sao Paulo about 1935 with his young wife, Dina. The Universty of Sao Paulo was in process of creation and he came here to teach antropology. Here, in contact with his students that were French speakers, with Mario de Andrade - the author of Macunaima - and going through the fields of a changing city like Sao Paulo and the forests of Brazil, he became an Antropologist. Now, he feels "saudade", this word that only exists in Portuguese. To fell saudades is to miss something or somebody, to be homesick, to feel nostalgic, but is a feeling beyond description. Reading this book, as Brazilian and Anthopologist, and looking at the photos LeviStrauss took here, I felt saudades as well. I could not write of saudades of a time when I was not even born. But of a lost city, the Indians we lost, the antrhopological hope of an understanding between men. During the thirties, Brazil and France were geographically far, but could dialogue in equal terms. Now all frontiers are fading and we can feel saudades of the promises that the modern thought has left without answer