Stories on a String: The Brazilian Literatura de Cordel (Hardcover)

Candace Slater s Stories on a String: The Brazilian Literatura de Cordel introduces readers to one of the most vibrant yet understudied traditions of popular literature in the modern world. Rooted in the centuries-old Iberian ballad and chapbook heritage but transformed within the cultural linguistic and historical context of Northeastern Brazil the cordel--or folheto--emerged as the primary reading material of working-class communities. These verse pamphlets sold in marketplaces and performed by poets combine news legend social critique and fantasy. Slater situates the cordel within Brazil s broader cultural landscape demonstrating its central role not only as entertainment but also as a vehicle of collective memory and commentary on historical events politics religion and daily struggles. Drawing upon more than a thousand texts and extensive fieldwork she reveals how these deceptively modest stories on a string shaped and reflected the lives of millions of Brazilians. The book also foregrounds the cordel s influence on twentieth-century Brazilian intellectual and artistic life tracing its impact on figures ranging from Jorge Amado to Ariano Suassuna and examining how middle-class and elite audiences have increasingly appropriated and reinterpreted this once-marginal form. Slater s analysis balances structural readings of recurring narrative patterns with close attention to performance contexts poet-audience interactions and the shifting meanings of the tradition in an era of modernization and mass media. Combining literary scholarship cultural history and ethnography Stories on a String makes a compelling case for the cordel as both a deeply rooted folk practice and a dynamic evolving art form central to understanding Brazil s social fabric. This title is part of UC Press s Voices Revived program which commemorates University of California Press s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice reach and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893 Voices Revived makes high-quality peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1982.