This doctoral dissertation aims to study the novel Um defeito de cor, by Ana Maria Gonçalves. This novel, set in the turbulent 19th
century in Brazil, presents nuances and interpretations about the formation of Brazil. The author provides references to this research
novel at the end of the text. Authors such as Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Gilberto Freyre, Roger Bastide and Florestan Fernandes,
among other names in Brazilian social thought, are referenced by Gonçalves. In view of this, I propose that it would not be unreasonable
to read the almost one thousand page work as a contemporary treatise on Brazilian thought, whose focus is precisely the racial debate
in the formation of contemporary Brazil. Therefore, the main research questions of this thesis are: how does Umfeito de cor articulate an
interpretation of Brazil? What are the characteristics of this interpretation? How does the work address, albeit indirectly, the canons of
Brazilian social thought? Thus, we will investigate how Umfeito de cor approaches and distances itself from Brazilian social thought.