XVII Congress of the Brazilian Studies Association

Occupying worlds apart: representational ethics in Julián Fuks’s A ocupação (2019)

• In Event: Recasting Brazilian and World Literature Perspectives II

Abstract

As the first novel to represent contemporary refugees and asylum-seekers in Brazil, Julián Fuks’ 2019 novel A ocupação has been described as a landmark in the country’s history of immigration literature. Moreover, in its strong ethical and political orientation, it aligns with international reflections on the responsibility of literature toward migrant stories. Indeed, as he narrates his conversations with the residents of the Cambridge Hotel, an urban occupation in downtown São Paulo, Fuks aims to resist the exoticization and paternalism found in his country’s long history of literary engagements with marginalized subjects. Instead, he introduces the concept of literatura ocupada as a mode of approaching the perennial ethical dilemmas of representing alterity. The novel has been met with substantial acclaim in Brazil and has cemented Fuks’ position as one of the country’s ambassadors in international literary circuits, with translations to English and French.
This paper will situate A ocupação at the crossroads of two strands of inquiry: first, the representation of undocumented subjects in Brazilian and World literature; and second, Brazil’s insertion into the circuits of World Literature. To this end, it will give special consideration to the novel’s context of production: a residency in the Cambridge Hotel itself, followed by a one-year mentorship with acclaimed Mozambican author Mia Couto, funded by ROLEX’s Arts Initiative. How do local and global concerns for representational justice come into tension in the novel’s production, form and circulation? What is the place of refugees and asylum-seekers in the circuits of World literature?

Author

• Lara Bourdin, McGill University and Sorbonne-Université