The First Class

What does a professor – Brazilian or otherwise – think and do on the first day of class, standing before a group of “foreign” students to talk about Brazilian literature?

      This apparently simple question that gave rise to the essays gathered in this book opens a series of other questions: Who is this professor? How did he or she go about planning that first class? What challenges do professors face when teaching the literature of a country different from that of their students, and in a language which is, in most cases, likewise unfamiliar to them?

      The result is not just an excellent sampling of experiences and reflections – it is also an homage, an elegy to those who have transformed Brazilian literature itself into a globetrotting, thought-provoking literary character.