Ignoring again the blacks.
RSRS: So they "eliminated" the Negro question. Then when the black appears again in realism is already closer to the end of abolition and the proclamation of the republic process, the black when it appears in a very stereotypical way, is the notorious case of Bertoleza, which is a character of Aluísio de Azevedo, the novel, "tenement", is a Portuguese married to a black woman who is dealt the worst possible way, she works like a slave to Joao, her husband, until there comes a time when he decides to sell her to another slaveholder and then happens one of the most terrible scenes of Brazilian literature that is Bertoleza, she commits suicide with a knife, cutting the womb itself. It is a striking scene. Our literary canon comes with this whole issue of being black women, that's where the work of Jorge Amado is, who is very cruel to black, because they are treated as prostitutes, as Gilberto Freyre describes the case of "Big-House & Slaves" in what is called the Maid, that black slave able to serve her masterv and start the children master in sex, this is not the image we want for our children and our black community, nor to our literature. That is why we criticized and much to the work of Jorge Amado and that this criticism does not point these problems for its literature.
And now there are black Brazilian writers who focus on this issue in a more realistic way? I am reminding myself of Paulo Lins.
RSRS: Yes, he's one of our representatives. The black literature exists since Luís de Gama who is a poet of the nineteenth century, was a alforreado, black abolitionist, but then his father sold to another master, as a goat, he says that all goats are in Brazilian society, is a classic poem. This writing through the twenties, thirties, also with Leno Guedes and Solano Trindade, Eduardo Oliveira, reaches the sixties with our João de Camargo we call our bulwark of our Brazilian literature, he has eighty years, extremely lucid and producing, so much so that in November he publishes a new book. In the late seventies to the early process of slow and gradual extinction of the military dictatorship arises generation of "black books". It is a series in which year pair publishes poetry and in unpaired year tales. And it is of fundamental importance, because for the first time in Brazilian history have a graphical generation of black authors, acting collectively, which were once scattered as Machado de Assis, Lima Barreto, Solano Trindade, who produced their literature without changing the collective without this strengthning. The black notebooks come in 1978, will be released on December 38th volume, are 38 years of collective production of black authors. Inclusive, nowadays several generations have passed by these compendia, which is younger than the black notebooks. This is a publication of combating racism, authors who publish their texts confront racism and combating racial discrimination as the main reason for its literature.
These books have a place among the 230 million Brazilians? It need not be black?
RSRS: The big our problem and bumped around with the issue of racism, is that these publications do not have wide circulation.
So what is the maximum that print of the black books?
RSRS: Initially are a thousand copies. Then, most are made a new drawing with the same number, is very little. But we face a number of barriers, bookstores that do not want to discuss the race issue, the universities do not want to work with this material. So much so that most of these books is restricted to NEABUBS which are the nucleus for the Study of Afro-Brazilians of Brazilian Universities, or are blacks sociology of literature researchers working with "black books". The literature that is taught in both university graduation, as graduate, in humanities does not discuss the racial issue. It is therefore that "black books" are coping texts, which speaks of the historic site, which is as follows, "There is a story that only blacks can count and few can or want to understand." It's that kind of footprint, is this voice has always been excluded, who found this space to voice their subjectivity of black, or black on the authoring and design of the literary text.
But, Paulo Lins breaks this silence, because it is a more comprehensive author, published in several countries. Would you say that is good example of black literature?
RSRS: Truth. "The City of God" is a referential novel for us. It is excellent, but then comes the question of shares. At Frankfurt, we were the honored country in the entourage were 70 writers, one black, Paulo Lins and one Indian, Daniel Munduruko. At that time was part of the literary collective group of black authors who published a note of disgust, took to the Ministry of Culture and Education and denounced this disparity. We are 52% of the population, because it is that we are not represented in the literature? Why only one and the most serious are the declarations of our Minister of Culture, Marta Suplicy, saying there was more black writers published in Brasill but not only, also the curator of this fair, said they had no aesthetic quality. But there are two serious errors, the minister of culture who does not know that black literature in Brazil and a trustee of the work meant that there was no aesthetic quality, but what is it aesthetic? Recently, Regina Dalcastagne, doctorate in literature from the Federal University of Brasilia, published a book called, "contemporary Brazilian literature, one challenged territory", where she did a massive survey of almost 300 novels, three major publishers of books in Brazil and he concluded statistically that black literature did not reach 2%. The characters where there were once more stereotyped, the black bandit died, the black woman was a prostitute, or employed, are supporting the plot, protagonists and never primarily featured by the author, who is usually of the southwest of Rio de Janeiro and São Paul, is connected to the area of letters or journalism, is the best social classes, has a higher education level and it is white, then you have all the racial, geographic and social issue and there are several interceptions where the black is not present . The writer in Brazil has a pre-defined image.
So how is it that you have all this work ahead, to break with all these canons, trying to show black literature, what they do to get to the public of Brazil itself?
RSRS: Our practice, me and Dr. Livia Natalia, she is Professor of Theory of Literature at the Federal University of Bahia, Salvador and I am completing my Masters in October, our practice is to bring this black-Brazilian literature within the academy, target my search accordingly. We have the perspectival erase of the canon, which has to do directly with our racial problems with racism. Our work is this, Livia works in the Brazilian literature where it belongs-black Brazilian authors. In my dissertation I make a comparison with Edson Rosa, a black-with Brazilian writer José Luís Almada, who is a Cape Verdean writer who deals with what he calls afrosolitude in Cape Verdean society and then you realize that I have two objects, which are two black writers and theorists that work. I also privileged blacks authors deal with epistemicide us if we do not bring our theorists, the academy does not, is a shift that we do, we left the object to the subject position in the academy and that involves working with black literature and deal with all this epistemological question.
