Lucero

The following article examines and deconstructs the diverse urban components of Caio Fernando Abreu’s 1990 novel, Onde andará Dulce Veiga? In an analysis of the exhaustive topographical, metropolitan and cultural elements coursing throughout the text, I consider the author’s inclusion of various literary tropes and themes including the Baudelarian flâneur, Proust’s dialectics of happiness and Abreu’s own highly cinematic literary language. In addition to previous readings of the novel’s depiction of popular culture and the author’s autofictive inclusion of his own AIDS/HIV experience, I propose an interpretation of the novel as a critical survey of urban decay and socio-political injustices (sexual, racial and economical), particularly in the decades immediately following Brazil’s post-dictatorial abertura.