Sob um céu à beira da queda: considerações sobre o processo de distopia no romance Sombras de Reis Barbudos, de J. J. Veiga

Abstract

This work presents an analysis of dystopia features in the narrative of the book Sombras de reis barbudos, by José J. Veiga. Veiga’s novel presents a countryside town that suffers from the domination of a company that arrives with promises of innovation and improvement; however, what we realized is the silencing of the population and the growth of a totalitarian reality, where an autodiegetic narrator, the boy Lucas, composes a vestigial narrative of resistance against this regime. This research has a bibliographic disposition, exploratory objectives and a qualitative approach; guided by two periods: the discussion of José J. Veiga’s work through a literature review aided by the readings of names such as Souza (1987), Yamaguchi (1988), Dacalstagnè (1996), Dantas (2002) and Barbosa ( 2018) that contribute with different critical views to the author's work; and considerations of the Utopian Studies, an area that studies dystopian narratives under an interdisciplinary bias, in addition to other related areas, notably social and political theory, with an emphasis on the ideas of Popper (1974), Arendt (1989), Berlin (1991), Baccolini (2000; 2003), Moylan (2000; 2016) and Claeys (2010; 2017). From these elements, it is possible to observe how the analyzed novel shows fruitful relations with the aspects of dystopia, ranging from the topophobic construction of the bad place, passing through the undecidability of the narrative between nuances of utopia and anti-utopia, up to the importance of the main character as a counterpoint to the regime constructed in the text. The results demonstrate that this Veiga’s work can be read under the light of dystopia and even though its textual construction differs from many of the usual patterns of dystopian narratives, it is still possible to recognize several points that corroborate its presence, only confirming the malleability that this textual form can take on different works.