Populist ambitions to ‘reform’ democracy have corporatist antecedents. Review: A Third Path: Corporatism in Brazil and Portugal, Melissa Teixeira, 2024, Princeton University Press
Brazil’s illiberal love affair
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Category: Brazil
The revolt of the peripheries
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Head hunter
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Decapitation structures a bold new take on cinematic theory. Review: The Visual Guillotine: The Cinematic Cut and Politics in Latin America, Thomas Matusiak, 2026, University of Minnesota Press
Forgotten defenders
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Afro-descendant Brazilians are in the front line of the battle for Nature. Review: The Earth Gives, the Earth Wants, Antônio Bispo dos Santos, translated by Alex Brostoff and Jamille Pinheiro Dias, 2026, Polity Press.
Categories: Brazil, South America
Roots of the right
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Authoritarian populism in Brazil is both new—and old. Review: The Faces of Authoritarianism and Strategies of Dissent in Contemporary Brazil, edited by Andreza Aruska de Souza Santos and Katerina Hatzikidi, 2025, UCL Press
Categories: Brazil, South America
A bad smell in Brazil
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The Bolsonaro bandwagon continues to reek of malodorous far-right fictions. Review: The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy: Why the Right Blames the Frankfurt School for the Decline of the West, AJA Woods, 2026, Verso
Categories: Brazil, United States
When Pop goes ‘pop!’
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Antonio Dias was the most famous Brazilian pop artist that never was. Review: Borderless Painting as Borderless Art: Antonio Dias between Brazil and Europe, Sérgio B Martins, 2026, University of California Press
Aide-mémoire
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Latin America’s need to remember a darker past is influencing literature. Review: Exemplary Humans, Juliana Leite, translated by Zoë Perry, 2026, Two Lines Press
Categories: Brazil
Armageddon foreseen
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Was a masterpiece by Mario Vargas Llosa about the Brazilian ‘War of Canudos’ really referring to Israel’s rampage through the Middle East? Review: The War of the End of the World, Mario Vargas Llosa, translated by Helen Lane, 1985, Faber & Faber (1981, Seix Barral)
Categories: Brazil, Middle East & North Africa, Peru
Future imperfect
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Latin America figures prominently in a history of urban visions. Review: The Invention of the Future: A History of Cities in the Modern World, Bruno Carvalho, 2026, Princeton University Press
Categories: Brazil, Europe, Mexico, North America