1st Edition
Literature and Ethics in Contemporary Brazil
When Brazil was honored at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2013, the Brazilian author Luiz Ruffato opened the event with a provocative speech claiming that literature, through its pervasive depiction and discussion of ‘otherness,’ has the potential to provoke ethical transformation. This book uses Ruffato’s speech as a starting point for the discussion of contemporary Brazilian literature that stands in contrast to the repetition of social and cultural clichés. By illuminating the relevance of humanities and literature as a catalyst for rethinking Brazil, the book offers a resistance to the official discourses that have worked for so long to conceal social tensions, injustices, and secular inequities in Brazilian society. In doing so, it situates Brazilian literature away from the exotic and peripheral spectrum, and closer to a universal and more relevant ethical discussion for readers from all parts of the world. The volume brings together fresh contributions on both canonical contemporary authors such as Graciliano Ramos, Rubem Fonseca, and Dalton Trevisan, and traditionally silenced writing subjects such as Afro-Brazilian female authors. These essays deal with specific contemporary literary and social issues while engaging with historically constitutive phenomena in Brazil, including authoritarianism, violence, and the systematic violation of human rights. The exploration of diverse literary genres -- from novels to graphic novels, from poetry to crônicas -- and engagement with postcolonial studies, gender studies, queer studies, cultural studies, Brazilian studies, South American literature, and world literature carves new space for the emergence of original Brazilian thought.
Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Contributors
Foreword
DOMINIC RAINSFORD
Introduction
VINICIUS MARIANO DE CARVALHO and NICOLA GAVIOLI
1. 2013 Frankfurt Book Fair’s Speech
LUIZ RUFFATO
2. Brazilian Contemporary Fiction and the Representation of Poverty
REGINA DALCASTAGNÈ
3. Memorials of Words: The Victim in Brazilian Literature
ROBERTO VECCHI
4. Deciphered Brazil and Enigma Brazil: Notes on Social Exclusion and Violence in Contemporary Brazilian Literature
EDIMILSON DE ALMEIDA PEREIRA
5. Journeys of Resistance in Afro-Brazilian Literature: the Case of Conceição Evaristo
SARA BRANDELLERO
6. Growing Up to Human Rights: The Bildungsroman and the Discourse of Human Rights in Um defeito de cor
LEILA LEHNEN
7. Narrating other Perspectives, Re-drawing History. The Protagonization of Afro-Brazilians in the Work of Graphic Novelist Marcelo d’Salete
JASMIN WROBEL
8. Neither Here nor There: Unsettling Encounters in Paulo Scott’s Habitante Irreal
CLAIRE WILLIAMS
9. Can’t You Hear my Call? The Guarani Kaiowá Letter and the Right to Land and Literature in Brazil
MARÍLIA LIBRANDI-ROCHA
10. In Search of a New Invisibilty
DENILSON LOPES
11. Revisions of Masculinity under Dictatorship: Gabeira, Caio and Noll
IDELBER AVELAR
12. Testimonial Performance: Fictions of the Real in Contemporary Art
MÁRCIO SELIGMANN-SILVA
13. Lyrical Guides to the Peripheries of Rio de Janeiro: Two Historical Moments
FELIPE BOTELHO CORRÊA
14. Nicolas Behr’s Futuristic braxília and the Critical Reinvention of Brasiliensidade (brasília-em-cidade)
STEVEN F. BUTTERMAN
15. The Night Explodes in the Cities: Three Hypotheses about Vinagre: uma antologia de poetas neobarracos
GUSTAVO SILVEIRA RIBEIRO
Biography
Vinicius Mariano de Carvalho is Lecturer at King’s Brazil Institute at King's College London, UK.
Nicola Gavioli is Assistant Professor of Portuguese at Florida International University, USA.