The Mystery of Samba - (Latin America in Translation/En Traducción/Em Tradução) by Hermano Vianna (Paperback)

About the Book

Mystery of Samba: Popular Music and National Identity in Brazil

Book Synopsis

Samba is Brazil's "national rhythm," the foremost symbol of its culture and nationhood. To the outsider, samba and the famous pre-Lenten carnival of which it is the centerpiece seem to showcase the country's African heritage. Within Brazil, however, samba symbolizes the racial and cultural mixture that, since the 1930s, most Brazilians have come to believe defines their unique national identity.
But how did Brazil become "the Kingdom of Samba" only a few decades after abolishing slavery in 1888? Typically, samba is represented as having changed spontaneously, mysteriously, from a "repressed" music of the marginal and impoverished to a national symbol cherished by all Brazilians. Here, however, Hermano Vianna shows that the nationalization of samba actually rested on a long history of relations between different social groups -- poor and rich, weak and powerful -- often working at cross-purposes to one another.
A fascinating exploration of the "invention of tradition," The Mystery of Samba is an excellent introduction to Brazil's ongoing conversation on race, popular culture, and national identity.

Review Quotes

"An important contribution not only to English-language scholarship on Latin American music, but also to today's lively multidisciplinary discussion about race, nation, and popular culture."--Estudios Interdisciplinarios de America Latina y El Caribe

"Despite the fact that Brazil is one of the three most prolific sources for the continuing evolution of popular music (the United States and Cuba being two others), an outsider without a decent knowledge of Portuguese must struggle to grasp the significance of the country's music and its culture. Hermano Vianna's new book is a valiant effort to make sense of both."--Lingua Franca

"This very readable book provides an interpretation of an aspect of the Brazilian culture that has remained unexplored until now."--CHOICE

About the Author

Hermano Vianna is a Brazilian anthropologist and writer who currently works in television. John Charles Chasteen is associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.