Where does cordel literature come from?

Cordel literature are popular and inexpensively printed booklets or pamphlets containing folk novels, poems and songs. They are produced and sold in street markets and by street vendors in Brazil, mainly in the Northeast. They are so named because they are hung from strings to display them to potential customers.

Cordel literature forms one of the least altered continuations of the Western traditions of popular literature, such as chapbooks, and popular prints. They come from the papel volante tradition of Portugal. This genre of literature was also found in Spain during the 18th and 19th centuries, and offered readers a wide array of topics, from basic instruction to political tracts.

Usually produced in black and white, in quarto format, cordel chapbooks are usually illustrated with woodcuts. Often both the author or poet’s and the woodcut artist’s names will appear in the credits of the book. Two expressive woodcutters are Adir Botelho and José Francisco Borges, whose woodcuts have been exhibited in the Louvre and the Smithsonian.

The cordel literature found its zenith in the decades of 1920s and 1930s, with the popular legend created by the cangaceiros of Lampião, a band of outlaws and bandolier bandits who terrorized the region for almost 20 years. The War of Canudos, a military conflict in the state of Bahia, 1896–1897, has been also a frequent theme of cordel literature, due to its epic dimensions and importance for the history of the Northeast backlands.