ABSTRACT

The work of Chico Buarque, considered in the extraordinary variety of its expression, reveals since the beginning a peculiar ability to weave an intense dialogue with the works of other authors. Depending on the critical perspective employed, this feature can be praised as an admirable vocation to intertextuality, or stigmatized as a regrettable tendency to plagiarism. Through a comparative reading of Chico Buarque's third novel, Budapest (2006), and Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveller (1979), the essay proposes a reflection on the idea of plagiarism highlighting how the uncontrolled and unpredictable dialogue between books, writers and readers is one of the most precious and mysterious resources for literature.

KEYWORDS
Chico Buarque; Budapest; plagiarism; Italo Calvino