Dissonance in Contemporary Brazilian tale of female authorship

Escrevivência in the tales of Maria Helena Vargas da Silveira (1940-2009)

Abstract

When we draw a profile of contemporary Brazilian authors who have published collections of tales in the last thirty years, we perceive a range of names. In this way, we cut out a list of the winners of the Jabuti Prize from 1990 to 2020, so that we can draw a profile of these writers. We realized, then, that the only black woman to win the award in these thirty years was Conceição Evaristo (1946- ). Dismissing the argument that black women have not published, we confronted the canonical profile with the collection Cadernos Negros (FIGUEIREDO, 2009), listed several names, among them, Conceição itself. Also, realizing that the aesthetics of these black writers permeates other questions and, in an attempt to “listen to” them (KILOMBA, 2019; SPIVAK, 2010), we listed the concept of escrevivência (EVARISTO, 2005, 2007; FERREIRA, 2013) and Afrofeminine literature (SANTIAGO, 2012) to analyze four short stories by the gaucho author Maria Helena Vargas da Siveira (1940-2009): “Rondas” and “Filosofia da farofa”, published in O sol de Fevereiro (1991); and “Iniciação” and “Barro duro do Laranjal”, published in Odara: Fantasia e realidade (1993).