Brasília versus Cidade Livre. Le mythe de la modernité urbaine au prisme de l’ordinaire chez João Almino

Abstract

International audienceThis text invites us to decipher an exceptional world halfway between the extraordinaryand ambitious project of a city and society, Brasília, and the ordinary daily life experienced on its margins (Cidade Livre). The aim is to show how João Almino'snovel (Hôtel Brasília) manages to capture a socio-spatial reality with a strong historicalcontent, reflecting an ideological stance and embodying an extraordinary politicalorientation, in order to deliver an enhanced version that draws on memory and emotion. It is precisely here that a proximity is sought in order to anchor the power of a capital city's destiny in the ordinary daily life of an improvised city. The analysis itself, inspired by geocriticism, focuses on the close relationship between reality and fiction.</div