What does a professor Brazilian or otherwise think and do on the first day of class, standing before a group of “foreign” students to talk about Brazilian literature? This apparently simple question that gave rise to the essays gathered in this book opens a series of other questions: Who is this professor? How did he or she go about planning that first class? What challenges do professors face when teaching the literature of a country different from that of their students, and in a language which is, in most cases, likewise unfamiliar to them? The result is not just an excellent sampling of experiences and reflections it is also an homage, an elegy to those who have transformed Brazilian literature itself into a globetrotting, thought-provoking literary character.