The Remains of Modern(ista) Export Routes along the Madeira and the Mamoré

Abstract

This chapter delves deeper into the topic of literary extractivism by examining a novel that focuses on a place where the extraction of rubber and the extraction of material for literary inspiration overlap. Márcio Souza’s Mad Maria (1980) is a historical novel about the construction of the Estrada de Ferro Madeira-Mamoré, a railroad meant to link the Bolivian rubber industry to an Atlantic trade route. The insertion of Brazilian modernista Mário de Andrade at the end of the novel presents a surprising juxtaposition of the infrastructure project and Brazilian modernism. Chapter 5 suggests that both the literary and industrial instrumentalization of Amazonia can produce easily overlooked waste that nonetheless has lasting implications.