O diário íntimo brutalista de Rubem Fonseca

Sobre Diário de um fescenino

Abstract

This text proposes a reading of one of Rubem Fonseca’s least critically acclaimed books, Diário de um fescenino (2003), leading us to point out some notable exceptions, specifically a brief article by Marcelo Rubens Paiva published at the time the book appeared and an extensive essay by Flávio Pereira Camargo from 2014. Always keeping the writer’s fiction in mind, our approach touches upon the notion of intimate diary as defined by essayist Nora Catelli in the 1990s, revisits Brazilian brutalist literature as typified by critic Alfredo Bosi in the 1970s, and invokes brutalism as interpreted by philosopher Achille Mbembe in 2020.