“TIME TO JOIN QUILOMBOS”: QUILOMBISM AND CONTEMPORANEITY IN PONCIÁ VICÊNCIO, BY CONCEIÇÃO EVARISTO
Quilombism; Resistance; Conceição Evaristo; Ponciá Vicêncio
This research proposes a critical reflection on the representations of quilombismo (a form of Afro-Brazilian religious and cultural heritage), contemporaneity, structural racism, and the identity issues of Black people and their subjugated voices in the novel Ponciá Vicêncio (2003), by Conceição Evaristo, one of the greatest writers in Brazilian Literature. One question leads us to systematize this reflection, focusing on the trajectory of contemporary literature, marked by social sensitivity and a commitment to the representation of Black women: Who is the Black woman expressed in current literary prose? To answer this question, we chose the novel Ponciá Vicêncio, by Conceição Evaristo, published in 2003. For the elaboration of the historical trajectory of contemporary Brazilian Black literature, with the aim of understanding and critically analyzing Conceição Evaristo's novel, the theoretical support centered on studies by Bernd (1988), Munanga (1988), Ianni (1998), Gilroy (2001), Bosi (2002), Proença Filho (2004), Carneiro (2005), Assis (2008), Agamben (2009), Schøllammer (2009), Fonseca (2010), and Dalcastagnè (2012). To discuss identity issues and memory in the novel, we use as theoretical basis Halbwachs (1990), Ricouer (2007), and Hall (2019). As a writer who writes about Black people, Conceição Evaristo creates her prose as an act of resistance, making writing her "lived experiences." It is through memories and lived experiences that she denounces and transforms pain, affection, and even silences into literature, through struggle. The word that accommodates her writing is anchored in lived experience and memory. Her prose, especially the novel, such as Ponciá Vicêncio, engenders the experience of the Black woman character in her forms of affection, her trajectory as a daughter, mother, and wife.