The Right to the (Real and Imagined) City: Afro-Brazilians in Motion, Assemblage, and Metafiction in Paulo Dutra's Aversão oficial
-
-
[1] Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University
Estados Unidos
-
- Localización: Hispania, ISSN 0018-2133, Vol. 103, Nº 4 (Portuguese Special Issue), 2020, págs. 581-591
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
-
Resumen
The thesis of social isolation places inequality at the doorstep of society as a whole. Sociologists have argued that poverty-stricken neighborhoods do not enjoy the same resources as richer areas, which exacerbates social and economic inequality. Poor Blacks are particularly affected by this phenomenon, as they are generally unable to relocate to wealthier spaces, remaining outside of the clusters of wealth and opportunities. Contemporary Brazilian literary productions (e.g., Vinícius Faustini's Guia afetivo da periferia and Jéssica Balbino's Traficando conhecimento) claim the underclass' right to the city throughout movement, placing peripheric subjects at the center of the city's new social and cultural meanings. In this paper, I study Paulo Dutra's collection of short stories Aversão oficial to discuss how poor Afro-Brazilians reject guettoization and mark their physical, social, and cultural presence in urban spaces by setting characters always in motion. Aversão oficial turns to elements of literatura periférica to construct its narrative; however, it complexifies the "estética que vem das ruas"-at the same time ratifying and rejecting a direct relation between reality and literature. Dutra creates a metafiction that pulls attention to the writing process as much as the reality of dispossessed Afro-Brazilians.
