Public Policies to Promote Reading in Brazil: an analysis (1930-2014)

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the trajectory of federal programs to promote reading and literature in Brazil. To this end, it investigates the period from the creation of the Ministry of Education and Public Health (1930) - the first governmental body to carry out reading promotion actions - until the establishment of the PNBE (1997-2014), the most comprehensive and expensive program for providing Brazilian public schools with literary collections. Our proposal is inscribed in the perspective that the book is not a neutral object (Chartier, 1990). Its curtailing, in a country marked by deep social inequalities, may point to interests of discourse appropriators (Foucault, 1996). The study of its history can therefore reveal these interests.