"The Cordial Man, American Product" by Ruy Ribeiro Couto in the translating mediation given by Alfonso Reyes

Abstract

One of the most significant political archetypes of Latin American history, the homem cordial (cordial man) theorized by Sérgio Buarque de Holanda in Raízes do Brasil (1936) and for a long time considered politically incorrect in his own country, arrived in Italy thanks to Cesare Rivelli's translation published by the Bocca Brothers in 1954. But there would be, instead, in the Italian context very few signs of interest in the other homem cordial, the one theorized a few years earlier in a short article written by the Brazilian Ruy Ribeiro Couto, and transmitted internationally by Alfonso Reyes with the Spanish title El Hombre Cordial, producto americano. Questioning the reasons that might have left the homem cordial ribeiriano in the shadows enables us to understand how the Latin American debate of the Thirties is still very topical today. And how the archetype of the homem cordial buarquiano remains one of the fundamental interpretative keys also at an international level with all its social and geo-political implications.