Abstract
This article intends to reflect, based on the letters of Lima Barreto and Paulo Barreto, on how the relationship between literature and the world of work operates in the first decades of the 20th century. From the heterogeneity of the epistles, we seek to understand how the process of fictional creation, within the context of its production and circulation, takes place in the tension between art and the market. Based on cultural history and intimate writing, this study also seeks to show how correspondence becomes a necessary instrument for the artist to build an image of himself, as well as a mediating tool for doing business and publicizing literary texts. Thus, it intends to contribute to the deepening of the work of these two writers, exposing the complexity of the historical process of production and dissemination of their books.
Keywords
Letters; literature; work; commerce; history