The Miniaturization of the World in Moacyr Scliar’s A Guerra no Bom Fim

Abstract

This article analyzes the Moacyr Sciliar’s novel A guerra no Bom Fim, originally published in 1972. The narrative portrays the Second World War and its devastating effects on Bom Fim, the Jewish neighborhood of the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil. From a child’s point-of-view, this space for fantasy and dream but also of nightmares and bad omens is shaped like “a small country,” which reveals in its shape the world miniaturized and brutalized by the war.