From the Dumpster to the Bookshelf: Literature Written by Black Women in Brazil and the Quest for Mobility from 1960 to the Present

Abstract

In this dissertation project, I argue that eight black women writers and a collective of black women writers produced literature that defy assigned spaces in Brazilian urban spaces starting in 1960 until the present. I particularly analyze Lélia Gonzalez and Beatriz Nascimentos’ academic essays; Carolina Maria de Jesus’ Quarto de despejo: Diário de uma favelada (1960 - Translated by David St. Clair as Child of the Dark: The Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus in 1962), Casa de Alvenaria: Diário de uma ex-favelada (1961 – Translated as I Am Going to Have a Little House in 1962), and Diário de Bitita (1977 – Translated by Emanuelle Oliveira and Beth Joan Vinkler in 1998); Geni Guimarães’ A cor da ternura (1989 – Translated by Niyi Afolabi as The Color of Tenderness in 2013); Miriam Alves’ Bará: Na trilha do vento (2015); Conceição Evaristo’s (1946 - ) Becos da memória (2006); the feminist collective of black women writers’ Além dos quartos: coletânea erótica negra Louva Deusas (2013 – ‘Beyond the bedrooms: Louva Deusas black erotic anthology’); Cidinha da Silva’s Canções de amor e dengo (2017 – ‘Songs of love and tenderness’); and Elizandra Souza’s Águas da cabaça (2012 – ‘Calabash’s water’). I employ the concept of epistemic space to claim that black Brazilian women use the power of knowledge production to occupy spaces where they were not allowed or to create new spaces for themselves. For instance, the author Carolina Maria de Jesus wrote a bestseller to move from a shack into a brick house, while Lélia Gonzalez produced scholarly pieces and occupied a seat in the House of Representatives. I show that these authors engender spaces through their engagement with different themes, like black identity, blackness in Brazil, memory and black girlhood, sexuality and spirituality.