ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book sought to interpret the 'scribbling on the postcards' of Rio de Janeiro by casting into perspective lived experience and representations of the city. It focuses on the notions of urban imaginaries, urban experiences, and alternative modernities. In regards to the notion of alternative cultural modernities, the book explores the notion of modernity as a cultural experience. The book also focuses on new modalities of favela authorship and the increasing consumption of the rubric favela by tours, hotels, fashion items, and events. Narrating the Street, the book compares how two very different writers, João do Rio and Rubem Fonseca, envisage the urban experience in the old streets of downtown Rio de Janeiro. It claims that the narrators-protagonists of these texts are also the last flâneurs of their epoch.
