Oswald de Andrade, Manifesto Antropófago. Cannibalist Manifesto, 1928. Translated by Leslie Barry, 1991
Only cannibalism unites us. Socially. Economically. Philosophically.
Down with the reversible world, and against objectified ideas. Cadaverized…The migrations. The flight from tedious states. Against urban scleroses. Against the conservatives and speculative tedium.
…Down with Memory as a source of custom. Down with all the importers of canned conscience.
One of the founders of Brazilian modernism, the poet Oswald de Andrade, wrote the Cannibalist Manifesto in 1928.
Oswald vied for a Brazilian cultural production neither aping nor rejecting the dominant European culture but “devouring” it: adapting and incorporating the strengths of the colonialising culture into the native self.
The Cannibalist Manifesto summons metaphorical acts of cannibalism that together forge a specular colonial identity into an autonomous and original, native and cosmopolitan culture.
- Annotated Cannibalist Manifesto by Oswald de Andrade (pdf)
- Original page on the ‘Rivista de antropofagia’, 1928 (jpg, 500k)
