Mário de Andrade (1893–1945), like many famous intellectuals, corresponded with a wide circle of people. In this letter, a reply to Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902–1987), the young poet from Minas Gerais who would become a key figure in modern Brazilian poetry, the former discusses the question of a kind of nationalism that never loses sight of a universal perspective. Some years later the Revista de Antropofagia (1928) published a poem by Drummond that stood out from the style of the period for its brief simplicity: “Uma pedra no meio do caminho;” this poem was subsequently included in his book Alguma poesia (1930). Decades later, one of his poems, “Canção antiga,” was printed on the fifth cruzeiro note of the Brazilian currency.
It would be difficult to sum up in just a few words the legacy and the writings of Mário de Andrade, who was a folklore researcher, cultural administrator, art critic, poet, and musicologist. In addition to his creative works, de Andrade was the driving force behind the internal structuring of SPAN (Servicio del Patrimonio Artístico Nacional), and a key figure in the group that was involved in the 1922 Semana de Arte Moderna. He was a prolific writer whose works were widely published in Brazilian periodicals and whose subjects included history, literature, music, folklore, and photography, a field he practiced himself.