This dissertation aims to discuss the links between literature, modernity and the city of Rio de Janeiro in the work of Lima Barreto. Initially, we conducted a study on the critical reception of the writer s work, identifying the different senses of History and Literature that characterize this approaches. After this work, we revisit the relationship between literary production of Lima Barreto and different meanings of modernity that circulated in Rio de Janeiro in the early decades of the twentieth century. To map some of the authors, environments and intellectual trends that influenced the writer, we contribute to the historiography that seek to reassess the specificity of the intellectual and cultural environment of the city. In the last part, we seek to identify how their literary spoke with the subjects and experiences of Rio de Janeiro.