Escrevivências e rememorações: construção de diálogos afrodiaspóricos entre Ponciá Vicêncio e Amada

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes how Black literature reconfigures past experiences, contributing to the filling of gaps left by official historiography. To this end, the study adopts as its corpus the novels Ponciá Vicêncio (2017), by the Black Brazilian writer Conceição Evaristo, and Beloved (1987), by the Black African American writer Toni Morrison. Historical gaps concerning Black people have produced silences forged to uphold a patriarchal and racist system that persistently denies the importance of Black women in social formation. Through the interweaving of the concept of rememory, presented by Morrison in Beloved, and escrevivência, a concept coined by Evaristo (2005), the novels construct fictional narratives committed to exposing not only the atrocities of the period of enslavement but also Black and female resistance in Brazil and the United States.As a specific objective, this study examines how Black female subjectivity is inscribed in these works through the articulation of these concepts. To this end, the notion of escrevivência is analyzed as life-writing, grounded in the understanding that the particularities of Black womanhood—shaped in the narratives by the tragedy of slavery—constitute the raw material for rememoration. Accordingly, this research engages with studies on themes such as motherhood, affect, enslavement, and corporeality as a site of memory. The analysis is enriched by theoretical contributions from scholars such as Leda Maria Martins (2003), who discusses the concept of spiraled time; Lélia Gonzalez (1984), with reflections on race and gender; and Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí (2021), who offers a critical perspective on the construction of female identities in postcolonial contexts. Additionally, Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s (2016) reflections on the production of history and the significance of silenced voices, as well as Paul Ricoeur’s (2007) discussions of memory and narrative, are fundamental to contextualizing the debates proposed herein. This study aims to contribute to Black studies, Comparative Literature, and related fields by addressing the intersectional discrimination experienced by Black women.