Oswald de Andrade

Oswald de Andrade (1890 to 1954) was a Brazilian poet, novelist and cultural critic who was born, spent most of his life and died in Sao Paulo. Born into a wealthy family, he used his money and connections to support modernist artists and projects, sponsoring the publication of several major novels of the period, producing experimental plays and backing painters such as Tarsila do Amaral. He was one of the founders of Brazilian modernism, a member of the Group of Five and a participant in the Modern Art Week. He is particularly important for the Manifesto Antropofago of 1928, which argued that colonized countries such as Brazil should ingest the culture of the colonizer and digest it in their own way, and which contains the line Tupi or not Tupi. His other works include the poems of Pau-Brasil (1925) and Serafim Ponte Grande (1933).