The Space In-Between: Essays on Latin American Culture by Silviano Santiago (review)

Book Reviews 119 study of coercive and tribute labor systems.These hypotheses will doubtless stir debate among Latin American scholars, and Professor Beattie is to be lauded for fostering such discussion. The Tribute of Blood is a superb study of the relationships between masculine honor, race, nationalism, and the army during the period of nation-state formation in Brazil. Michael R. Hall Armstrong Atlantic State University Santiago, Silviano. The Space Zn-Between: Essays on Latin American Culture, ed. Ana Lucia Gazzola, trans. Tom Burns, Ana Lucia Gazzola and Gareth Williams. (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001. Pp.183. $18.95.) The Space In-Between: Essays on Latin American Culture presents readers with eleven essays by Brazilian writer and literary critic Silviano Santiago (1936-). All were published in Portuguese between the late 1960’s and 1995, some in well-known collections such as Uma literatura nos trdpicos . Wander Melo Miranda and editor Ana Lucia Gazzolla provide an informative and valuable introduction to Silviano Santiago and his context, which servesto orient readers to the themes and content of each of the essays translated for this collection. The volume as a whole is crucial because it gives a whole new set of readers an opportunity to read and ponder the prolific work of Santiago, who, despite being an innovative theorist, has primarily been read only in Portuguese . As the introduction states, Santiago is “a pioneer in the development of concepts crucial to the discourse of contemporary . . . cultural theory, especially post-colonial theory; terms like space in-between and hybridity began with [him]” (2). The essays in this collection all center on discussion of Latin American identity and culture and the debates that have arisen around this topic since the time of the conquest. Many of the essays explore how a variety of different writers and intellectuals, most of them Brazilian, have imagined Latin America or, more specifically, Brazil and have fashioned its identity over the course of the last five hundred years. The essays are especially concerned with how these writers have conceived “peripheral” cultural production in relation to the field of cultural production produced in Europe and other cultural centers. Silviano Santiago proposes that Brazilian culture, like that of other developing nations, is not The Latin Americanist Winter/Spring 2004 merely a copy of European models, as many critics and intellectual have suggested. He asserts that Brazilian cultural production need not be either nationalist or cosmopolitan, dependent or universal. Rather, it necessarily occupies a space in-between. His essays attempt to define this space and its parameters, both by definition and example. Well versed in the deconstructionist theories of Jacques Derrida, Silviano Santiago applies this theory to a Latin American context. From here he is able to analyze the literature and history of his culture and dismantle terms like original and copy, unpacking their implications for the notions of so-called dominant and dominated cultures. Santiago’s thought in essence gives importance to Brazil and draws attention to the value and creative power of the periphery. According to Santiago, the Latin American writer has a very important role, which is to “. . .unearth the limitations, weaknesses, and gaps to be found in the original model” (33).Thus, in peripheral countries, artists and writers necessarily use models, but they also supplement and surpass them. While not isolated from the so-called centers, they are not dominated by them either. In the book’s final essay, “Worldly Appeal: Local and Global Politics and the Shaping of Brazilian Culture,” Santiago discusses Mario de Andrade and his notable role in confronting the Brazilian elite’s Eurocentric outlook by recovering ethnic and cultural multiplicity in works such as his seminal modernist novel, Macunaima. The Space In Between aims to offer an articulate vision of Santiago’s critical work, “from his reflections of a more inclusive character on the status of Latin American literature to those that focus on specific questions of Brazilian culture” (2). Some essays, such as “Latin American Discourse,” do include discussion of Latin American writers such as Borges, Cortazar, and Octavio Paz. Many of the essays, however, do have a strong focus on Brazil and its literary traditions, and they do tend to draw...