This dissertation reassesses the dialogues between the aesthetic and cultural projects of Cuban writer José Lezama Lima (1910-1976) and the avant-garde, in both its European and Latin American manifestations. My main assertion is that Lezama Lima’s negative appraisals of the avant-garde are more a symptom of his will-to-power and self-legitimization than a categorical rejection of avant-garde values. My work thus revises the critical consensus that fixates on Lezama Lima’s presumed rejection of the avant-garde by documenting the deep relationships between texts and contexts, that is to say, between his poiesis and the intellectual, artistic and cultural manifestations that conform the late ‘30s and ‘40s Cuban scenario, to which the pervasiveness of European and Latin American avant-garde movements such as muralismo were fundamental. I hence consider Lezama Lima’s intricate engagement with avant-garde manifestations in the visual arts, an essential element in his aesthetics underestimated by critics despite the centrality of the concept of image to his works, and the attention 20th century art and thought gave to vision and visuality, as shown by critics Martin Jay and Mary Ann Caws. My dissertation thus explores the interconnections between intellectual, literary and visual art history in order to demonstrate how, despite his critical pronouncements against the avant-garde’s will-to-novelty and rejection of tradition, Lezama Lima actually incorporates several avant-garde topoi and techniques into his works (such as André Breton’s concept of “objective chance” and Pablo Picasso’s “completive technique”), in direct response to the epistemological shift they embody – a shift that has deeply impacted the contemporary regime of perception and patterns of representation. By driving Lezama Lima’s works back to its original contexts, my dissertation represents an important contribution to Cuban avant-garde criticism and its relationship to the broader cultural context of the avant-garde in Latin America and Europe, dialoguing with recent theories that emphasize the impact of the avant-garde on the establishment of contemporary regime of perception and patterns of representation as well. / text

Este trabalho cria um diálogo entre dois movimentos literários de vanguarda surgidos nos anos vinte do século passado no Peru e no Brasil: por um lado, a vanguarda indigenista de Puno dirigida por Gamaliel Churata, que afirmava tanto sua identidade regional e étnica, como os procedimentos vanguardistas empregados para expressá-la; e, por outro lado, seu contemporâneo brasileiro, a Antropofagia de Oswald de Andrade, que desde a metrópole paulista reunia elementos semelhantes (o indígena e o impulso vanguardista) com distintos propósitos. A tese pretende refletir sobre a imagem do indígena elaborada por ambos os movimentos nas revistas Boletín Titikaka e Revista de Antropofagia e que está subjacente em El pez de oro de Churata e em Serafim Ponte Grande de Andrade; esta imagem foi usada como plataforma simbólica a partir da qual enfrentar as configurações históricas, literárias e sociais hegemônicas, e elaborar um projeto de modernidade nacional. Os limites e aporias de ambos os programas, que falavam através de uma voz emprestada e ausente, não ressaltados com a intenção de mostrar as contradições da sociedade em que foram gestados. / The present work creates a dialogue between two literary avant-garde movementes that emerged in the twenties of last century in Peru and Brazil: on the one hand, the avant-garde\'s indigenismo of Puno directed by Gamaliel Churata, that claimed both their regional and ethnic identity, as the procedures avant-garde use to express it; and, on the other hand, his Brazilian contemporary, the Oswald de Andrade\'s Anthropophagy, who from the São Paulo metropolis brought together similar elements (the indigenous and the avant-garde impulse) with different intentions. The thesis intends to discuss the indigenous\'s picture drawn by both movements in the journals Boletín Titikaka and Revista de Antropofagia and present in El pez de oro by Churata and Serafim Ponte Grande by Andrade; this image was used as a symbolic platform which deal with historical, literary and perplexities of both programs, which spoke through an absent voise, are underlined with the intention of showing the contradictions of their society.

Este trabalho cria um diálogo entre dois movimentos literários de vanguarda surgidos nos anos vinte do século passado no Peru e no Brasil: por um lado, a vanguarda indigenista de Puno dirigida por Gamaliel Churata, que afirmava tanto sua identidade regional e étnica, como os procedimentos vanguardistas empregados para expressá-la; e, por outro lado, seu contemporâneo brasileiro, a Antropofagia de Oswald de Andrade, que desde a metrópole paulista reunia elementos semelhantes (o indígena e o impulso vanguardista) com distintos propósitos. A tese pretende refletir sobre a imagem do indígena elaborada por ambos os movimentos nas revistas Boletín Titikaka e Revista de Antropofagia e que está subjacente em El pez de oro de Churata e em Serafim Ponte Grande de Andrade; esta imagem foi usada como plataforma simbólica a partir da qual enfrentar as configurações históricas, literárias e sociais hegemônicas, e elaborar um projeto de modernidade nacional. Os limites e aporias de ambos os programas, que falavam através de uma voz emprestada e ausente, não ressaltados com a intenção de mostrar as contradições da sociedade em que foram gestados. / The present work creates a dialogue between two literary avant-garde movementes that emerged in the twenties of last century in Peru and Brazil: on the one hand, the avant-garde\'s indigenismo of Puno directed by Gamaliel Churata, that claimed both their regional and ethnic identity, as the procedures avant-garde use to express it; and, on the other hand, his Brazilian contemporary, the Oswald de Andrade\'s Anthropophagy, who from the São Paulo metropolis brought together similar elements (the indigenous and the avant-garde impulse) with different intentions. The thesis intends to discuss the indigenous\'s picture drawn by both movements in the journals Boletín Titikaka and Revista de Antropofagia and present in El pez de oro by Churata and Serafim Ponte Grande by Andrade; this image was used as a symbolic platform which deal with historical, literary and perplexities of both programs, which spoke through an absent voise, are underlined with the intention of showing the contradictions of their society.