A Encruzilhada do Verso: Exu e a Categoria da Afro-epopeia em Orixás em Cordel, de Bule-Bule

Abstract

This article analyzes the book Orixás em Cordel (2018), by the Bahian master Bule-Bule, discussing how the poetic texture of the pamphlet acts as a political instrument for social reparation, decoloniality, and the affirmation of Black ancestry in Brazil. Historically marked by epistemological exclusions and the reproduction of Euro-Christian religious intolerance, the traditional universe of cordel literature is here erased and transformed into a space of reverence and preservation for the Yoruba cosmology. To address this aesthetic-spiritual complexity, the theoretical category of the afro-epic is proposed, a critical framework focused on the mythical narratives of Black bodies in the diaspora, which repositions African deities as legitimate philosophical heroes in the field of contemporary literary studies. The analytical centrality given to Eshu is justified as he is the lord of beginnings, movement, and communication, constituting the epistemic crossroads necessary to deconstruct colonial stereotypes and implode the hegemonic literary monologism.