FICTION IN THE DIÁRIO DO MARANHÃO: CIRCULATION, MEDIATION, AND THE MAKING OF A LITERARY REPERTORY

Abstract

This article examines the circulation of fictional prose in the newspaper Diário do Maranhão between 1874 and 1900, with an emphasis on Portuguese production, while not disregarding the broader context of the foreign, national, and local fiction that filled the newspaper's pages. The research, of a historiographical and documentary nature, with a quali-quantitative approach, identified 72 serialized novel titles and hundreds of advertisements for literary works throughout the period under study. The results indicate the hegemony of French fiction, followed by Portuguese fiction. The Portuguese presence, although secondary, was constant and concentrated in two moments: 1874–1877 and 1891–1895, featuring authors such as Pinheiro Chagas, Francisco Gomes de Amorim, Alberto Pimentel, and Camilo Castelo Branco. The analysis of advertisements reveals the role of booksellers and reading rooms as agents of cultural mediation, while the reviews published in the newspaper indicate the editorial staff's role in legitimizing a transatlantic literary repertoire. The research demonstrated how the Diário do Maranhão acted as a vector for the circulation of symbolic goods and as a space for negotiation between local tastes and foreign traditions, in a process that involved both the importation of European models and the emergence of a local literary production.