| Popis: |
This dissertation examines the thematic connections and the formal structure shared between the literary texts written by several black women authors in Portugal and Brazil over the last five years. Since literary and academic events transitioned to virtual platforms in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, black women writers from Portugal and Brazil, both Portuguese speaking countries, found a place online, in the form of a kind of virtual diaspora, where they could come together to discuss their lives as black women in their respective countries through their written literary works. Here, I analyze the texts of seven prominent black women writers: Bianca Santana, Conceição Evaristo, Cristiane Sobral, and Cidinha da Silva from Brazil, and Djaimilia Pereira, Telma Tvon and Yara Monteiro from Portugal. My analysis shows that several similar themes (e.g., racism against blacks, recognition of the importance of African culture, and constructing of a multicultural identity), the use of Polyphony, Magical Realism, Animism Realism, and an Autobiographic style of writing all work to shape these women’s narratives, while alluding to the oral tradition of African culture. The stories of these black women, enriched by their experiences, share a common objective – combating racism and sexism and understanding their multicultural identity. Taking from an idea described by Professor Conceição Evaristo in her 2003 talk at the Federal University of Paraíba, I frequently use the concept of “escrevivências”, which translates to “writings about their experiences”, and include additional supporting evidence from other authors such as Lélia Gonzalez, Teófilo de Queiroz Junior, Frantz Fanon, Saidiya Hartman, Stuart Hall and Homi Bhabha to understand, in depth, how individuals from African diasporas are described in each analyzed text. I also provide examples of the use of Magical Realism described by Alejo Carpentier, Animism Realism by Pepetela, polyphony by Mikhail Bakhtin and the genre of Autobiography by Verena Alberti that appear in these written works. This research explores the phenomenon of how black women writers in Portugal and Brazil influence one another, which will likely impact future literary productions of black female authorship in their respective countries. |
