Paulo Francis (Rio de Janeiro, September 2, 1930 – New York City, February 4, 1997) was a Brazilian journalist, political pundit, novelist and critic. Francis became prominent in modern Brazilian journalism through his controversial critiques and essays with a trademark writing style, which mixed erudition and vulgarity. Like many other Brazilian intellectuals of his time, Francis was exposed to Americanization during his teens. In his early career, Francis tried to blend Brazilian left-wing nationalist ideas in culture and politics with the ideal of modernity embodied by the United States. He acted mostly as an advocate of modernism in cultural matters, later becoming embroiled in Brazil's 1960s political struggles as a Trotskyist sympathizer and a left-wing nationalist, while at the same