The hypertext of the Amazon: reading Euclides da Cunha’s unfinished book

International audienceAfter publishing Os Sertões (1902), translated as Rebellion in the Backlands (1944), Euclides da Cunha headed in 1905 the Brazilian Boundary Commission of Upper Purus River for the Brazilian Government. Before even landing there, he had already published four articles about the region in the national press. He was planning to write another epic book, this time about the Amazon and its’ people. A project he never finished, as he was killed in 1909 by his wife’s lover.We know today that the title of the book would be “Lost Paradise”, after a Milton’s poem. However, he left behind him eight essays, published in the book À margem da história (1909), translated as The Amazon: land without History (2006). Beside this book, we also have reports and maps he did for the Commission, his correspondence, a foreword in a friend’s book and a set of articles.In order to write about the Amazon, Euclides da Cunha surrounded himself with the opinion of foreign travelers such as Alexander von Humboldt, Louis Agassiz, Walter Bates, Carl von Martius, Johann von Spix and many others, mixing science, journalism and poetry, constituting an hypertext, as Barthes described . This paper proposes to make an intertextual reading between Euclides’ writings and the books he read, investigating in what extent he borrowed the opinions and views of these authors to build his own narrative