Abstract
In his diaries, Franz Kafka developed the notion of small literature, intended to mark out the production of nations with no literary tradition. Kafka perceived in this kind of production the possibility of vocalizing a culture and contributing to confer social cohesion on it. Although Kafka did not have his own production in mind when he coined the term - what generated a heated debate that persists, especially following an essay on the subject published by Deleuze and Guattari, in 1975 - the purpose of this article is to understand to what extent Kafka, as an analyst of culture (the one who elaborates the notion of small literature), detects in the literature of his time a set of attributes that characterize it as both an interpreter and a social and political actor. The analytical relevance of this category is examined through a comparative study involving the analyses of Fernando Pessoa and Mário de Andrade on their respective cultural contexts, in order to broaden the notion of minor literature originally developed by Kafka.
Keywords
Minor Literature; Franz Kafka; Fernando Pessoa; Mário de Andrade; Literature & Politics