Entre a violência, memória e resistência: as vozes periféricas em "A gente combinamos de não morrer”, da Conceição Evaristo

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the short story “A gente combinamos de não morrer” by Brazilian author Conceição Evaristo, published in the collection Olhos d’água (2016), in order to understand how peripheral voices, positioned as narrators, articulate the themes of violence, memory, and resistance. This is a qualitative study, based exclusively on bibliographic sources such as scholarly articles and books. The methodology was divided into two stages: the first consisted of reading and discussing contextual and theoretical texts to situate both the author and the literary work, the object of our investigation, while also engaging with the theoretical framework; the second stage consisted of the analysis and interpretation of Evaristo’s short story, aiming to connect theory and analytical practice. The theoretical foundation for the analysis is based on the works of Candido (1972), Holanda (2004), and Lins (1979), under the premise that literature is intertwined with society, playing a role in revealing what official history conceals and offering alternative perspectives. In the discussion of Afro-Brazilian literature, in order to better understand Evaristo’s fictional writing, we draw primarily on the contributions of Assis Duarte (2010, 2017), Constância (2017), Evaristo (2020), and Bernd (2003). For the discussion on violence, the critical and reflective perspectives of Chauí (2017), Han (2017), and Arendt (2000, 2007) were adopted, while memory and resistance were approached through the works of Ecléa Bosi (2009) and Alfredo Bosi (2000), respectively. The revision reveal that Evaristo’s concept of escrevivência recurs throughout her work as a means of social denunciation and resistance against the oppressive order that seeks to erase peripheral populations