Luiz Gama por Luiz Gama: carta a Lúcio de Mendonça

Abstract

The letter from Luiz Gama to Lúcio de Mendonça, dated July 25th, 1880, brings the story of life of the only Brazilian former slave that was to stand out as scholarly man of letters and leader of the abolitionist and republican movements. In this paper; we propose to show how this letter; generally considered only in isolation, is, in fact, inscribed in an intertextual network that modifies and multiplies reading levels. Originality consists both in the value of the testimony and in its enunciation phenomena. We also evoke the novelty history of a document that only comes to fore in the 1930s, surrounded by a polemic that widens interpretative possibilities. Finally, to analyze the borders between the epistolary and autobiographical genres allows us to question up to what point this really is an “Autobiography'', as this letter has been presented for over sixty years