Literatures of the end of the world

an analysis of O Deus das avencas (2021) by Daniel Galera

Abstract

This article offers an analysis of how O Deus das avencas (2021), by Daniel Galera, participates in a group of narratives that we have conventionally called end-of-the-world literatures – dystopian or post-apocalyptic storylines that feature the rise of totalitarian regimes to the power, the reduction of economically underprivileged groups to “bare life”, the exploitation of natural resources and social inequalities deepening, precarious employment, the transformation of communication technologies into technologies of surveillance, control and repression, and other fears arising from the democratic crises and the strengthening of liberal capitalism. O Deus das avencas (2021) is composed of three short stories that, although disparate, seem to constitute the gradation of social and political relations in the country towards the breakdown of forms of sociality. The first short story, “O Deus das avencas”, presents the agony of a couple who waits for the birth of their child facing the country's political course uncertainty; the second, “Tokyo”, narrates a dystopian society in which the severe environmental devastation and the drastic reduction of human interactions gathers with the belief in the possibility of transferring consciousness to technological devices; the third, “Bugonia”, presents a post-apocalyptic future in which humanity, in the absence of technologies and under the threat of a contagious and lethal pathology, returns to tribal forms of sociality and, in order to survive, establishes a mutualism relationship with bees. In the proposed analysis, we dialogue with researchers that observe the growth of dystopian production in different countries and socio-political contexts, such as María Laura Pérez Gras (2017), Eirik Vassenden (2022), Tom Moylan (2018), Jill Lepore (2017), Gregory Claeys (2017), among others.