As intérpretes do Brasil: raça, gênero e classe na literatura contemporânea de mulheres negras brasileiras

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article investigates how contemporary literature by Black Brazilian women provokes an epistemic shift in the literary field. Starting from the premise that Black female authorship is not merely a thematic expansion or cultural-political provocation, but a transformation in the very conditions of literary production — because Black women write, promote the circulation of their works, and generate recognition first among peers and only later within the literary field itself. The article is organized around three axes articulated through the concept of intersectionality (CRENSHAW, 1989): race, gender, and class. In the race axis, there is a central desire around how Black women writers challenge the historical mechanisms of epistemic exclusion that assign legitimate knowledge production to white men, drawing on the contributions of bell hooks, Lélia Gonzalez, and Rita Terezinha Schmidt. In the gender axis, a lineage is traced among Black Brazilian women writers, from Maria Firmina dos Reis to Conceição Evaristo, whose concept of escrevivência reframes Black literary writing and positions it as theoretical ground, because the relationship between lived experience, memory, and Black ancestry converges to expand the literary field. In the class axis, literary legitimation mechanisms operate unequally for Black women writers: they can be intellectuals and writers, but rarely reach spaces of prestige, as demonstrated by the trajectories of Maria Firmina dos Reis, Carolina Maria de Jesus, and so many others. Drawing on Patricia Hill Collins, Ana Maria Gonçalves, Miriam Alves, and Eliana Alves Cruz, the article argues that these writers do not merely narrate Brazil — they reinterpret it, and in doing so, displace the epistemic structure of who can occupy the place of Brazil's interpreter.

Keywords: Black Brazilian literature; Black female authorship; intersectionality; escrevivência.