Memory alleys in Demonic Grounds: Black Brazilian Women Authors and the Defiance of Placelessness in Brazil

• In Event: Pensamiento Negro, Activismo Negro

Abstract

While statistical  research is efficient in empirically proving that Brazil was never a racial democracy, Black Brazilian Women authors have created narratives that explicit the emotional and social impact of displacement in Brazil. In this presentation, I focus on Conceição Evaristo’s Becos da Memória (“Memory Alleys”) to shed a light on the spatial configurations and Black geographies in urban areas in Brazil. Relying on the work of Afro-Brazilian scholar Lélia Gonzalez, the African American author Toni Morrison, and Dr. Katherine McKittrick, I demonstrate how Black Brazilian authors use memory in their writings to defy assigned spaces, placelessness and erasures.

Author

• Ana Claudia dos Santos Sao Bernardo, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities