Irrompendo silêncios: a literatura afro-brasileira de Maria Firmina do Reis, Carolina Maria de Jesus e Conceição Evaristo

Abstract

The representation of black women in Brazilian literature has, over time, reflected the various stereotypes that marked society and, in fact, silenced this woman's voice. Gilberto Freyre's (1933) famous reiteration in Casa Grande & Senzala, “white to marry, black to work, and mulatto to fornicate” thus seemed to inculcate in the popular imagination, while at the same time hegemonic in the literary tradition. by white author. The myths were propagated by science, medicine and literature, from that of the "black mother", who was able to deny her own children to dedicate herself to raising those of the "sinhá", to the "bestialization" of the black subject, who it would only serve for manual labor, finally, the myth of the hypersexualization of Africans and Afro-descendants in order to disqualify the black people, depriving them of their full humanity. However, these stigmas came to be challenged through the Afro Brazilian literature of various manifestations, including the literature in which black authors, through the so-called scribe, concept coined by Conceição Evaristo (2008), give prominence to a new black character. Thus, it is believed to be important to explore such works, which go against the forms of updating of “coloniality”. For this, analyzes of the literature of Maria Firmina dos Reis, Carolina Maria de Jesus and Conceição Evaristo, although temporally distant, the first of the last two, are proposed. To support the discussions, we chose authors who deal with Afro-Brazilian Literature, such as Luiza Lobo, Eduardo de Assis Duarte, Regina Dalcastagnè and Constância Lima Duarte, articulating them to the “decolonial gyrus” and “peripheral feminisms” of Gayatri Spivak, Angela Davis, bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins, María Lugones, Grada Kilomba, Kimberle Crenshaw and Lélia Gonzalez.