Abstract

In this essay I compare Massimo Bontempelli's "Noi. Gli Aria" (1934) with Stefan Zweig's "Brazil, Land of the Future" (1941), underlining similarities and differences between the vision and the description of Brazilian landscape, people and politics in these two travel books. While Bontempelli is more concerned with the description of the terrific beauty of the bay of Rio de Janeiro and with the analysis of the carioca's typical melancholy, Zweig idealize Brazil as a model of an intercultural society which can become an example of the upcoming societies.