Oralidade e ancestralidade: uma análise de Histórias de leves enganos e parecenças, de Conceição Evaristo

Abstract

The corpus of analysis of our work is the book Histórias de leves enganos e parecenças (2016), by Conceição Evaristo. The book is composed of twelve short stories and one novella, in its thematic architecture is the predominance of ancestral memory and the orality of Afro descendants. We defend the hypothesis that Conceição Evaristo translates in her literature and into Afro-Brazilian literature, the "traces" (GLISSAT, 2014) of black culture. The cultural microclimates of black tradition come from African ancestors, which can now be found in the literature of the Americas. Conceição Evaristo transits between the public and the private in a reflexive and analytical atmosphere of the social subjects fragmented by the unbalanced cultural conflicts. Histórias de leves enganos e parecenças acquires eloquent dimensions of what can be classified as "animist realism," since "magical" elements are used, which evokes the cosmogonic tradition of African culture. The myths represented in the narratives highlight a different style to Conceição Evaristo's "self-writing". The elements of nature are evoked and symbolized from a perspective deriving from genesis, with water as the central element in this process. In "Sabela", the final text of the book, the re-signification of ancestor’s tradition of translating themselves under the light of memory and black identities. In this sense, this research is justified by the fundamental role the work of Conceição Evaristo has in the process of reflecting on ethnic, racial and female issues in the context of black orality and black ancestry. The overall objective of this research is to analyze the manifestation of orality and ancestry of afro descendants in Histórias de leves enganos e parecenças. The specific objectives are to study Afro-Brazilian literature considering contemporary literary criticism; to contextualize the places occupied by Conceição Evaristo in the scenario of Afro-Brazilian literary criticism and in the Black Movement; to investigate the oral heritage of Afro descendant tradition; to explore the occurrence of Afro descendant ancestry in Histórias de leves enganos e parecenças. The methodology was based on the bibliographical survey from texts by Brookshaw, (1983); Bhabha, (2014); Hall, (2011); Glissant, (2013); Hampaté Bâ, (2010); Garuba, (2012); Halbwachs, (2003); Leite, (2012); Duarte, (2007), Souza (2017), among others. As the result of analysis, we verified that the narratives are multiple in meanings, they represent cultural values originating from the afro descendant ancestors. We note the importance of storytellers for the preservation of the ancestral narratives responsible for the maintenance of myths, proverbs and narratives of oral tradition, translated into Brazilian culture today.