The Athenaeum: A Novel (Northwestern World Classics) cover image

The Athenaeum: A Novel (Northwestern World Classics)

Northwestern University Press
Raul Pompeia, Renata R. M. Wasserman, César Braga-Pinto
Regular price $22.00 USD
Pages
264 pp.
Language
English
Publisher
Northwestern University Press
Published
2015-06-10
Year
2015
Binding
Paperback
ISBN
9780810130791
Dimensions
13.03 × 2.29 × 19.68 cm
Written by
Raul Pompeia, Renata R. M. Wasserman, and César Braga-Pinto

Originally published as O Ateneu in 1888, The Athenaeum is a classic of Brazilian literature, here translated into English in its entirety for the first time. The first-person narrator, Sergio, looks back to his time at the eponymous boarding school, with its au­tocratic principal and terrifying student body. Sergio’s account of his humiliating experiences as a student, with its frank discus­sion of corruption and homoerotic bullying, makes it clear that his school is structured and administered so as to reproduce the class divisions and power structure of the larger Brazilian society.

In its muckraking mode, the novel is in the spirit of Natural­ism, imported from France and well-acclimated to Brazil, where it blossomed. At the same time, Pompéia maintains the novel’s credibility as a bildungsroman by portraying the narrator’s psy­chological development. The novel’s conclusion suggests both a doomed society and its possible redemption, indicative of a mo­ment of upheaval and transition in Brazilian history.

Title
The Athenaeum: A Novel (Northwestern World Classics)
Author
Raul Pompeia, Renata R. M. Wasserman, César Braga-Pinto
Publisher
Northwestern University Press
Published
2015-06-10
Availability
Ordered from publisher
Language
English
Pages
264 pp.
Binding
Paperback
ISBN-13
9780810130791
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