You have to be Gay to know God: análise dialógica do discurso religioso à luz da arquitetônica de Bakhtin

Abstract

According to the Human Dignity Trust (2024), thirty-one countries criminalize homosexuality in Africa. The justifications lie in the concept of “sin”, but there are those who understand the imagery of the “gay man” and the “African man” as irreconcilable. The representation of the conflict that tensions religion with sexual diversity can be read in several short stories from queer African literature and lacks analysis with a dialogical bias. In this sense, You Have to be Gay to Know God (2018) by South African Siya Khumalo, an autobiographical work, reflects this scenario by making a social reading of the country's religious and political climate. As an artistic creation, the work also resides in an aesthetic existence, referring to the concept of architecture discussed by Bakhtin (2010). In view of this, this work aims to analyze, supported by the concept of architecture as a methodological instrument, the construction of the aforementioned work, aiming to verify how the content, revisited from the author's life and which addresses the tension between homosexuality and religion, takes shape through orchestrated language. It is concluded that the tension is expressed through memory and the reinterpretation of religious narratives marked by lexical choices that express different forms of negotiation with religiosity. The author reflects on the interpretative flexibility of the country's current religious discourse and how its faith was influenced.