In June 2018, Brazil started a campaign in favor of choosing an author to occupy chair number seven at the Brazilian Academy of Letters (ABL). But, it wasn't just any author. It was about Maria da Conceicao Evaristo de Brito, our Conceição Evaristo, the purest representation of the black female voice in Brazilian Literature.
The campaign may not even have ended with the expected result (Conceição lost the election to filmmaker Cacá Diegues). However, the 71-year-old writer from Minas Gerais continues in her fight for the recognition of black women as producers of knowledge. After all, no one better than her to defend literature as a political act!
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Conceição Evaristo was born in Belo Horizonte (MG), on November 29, 1946, into a poor family that lived in the south zone of the capital of Minas Gerais. She managed to complete her studies in the normal course at the age of 25, reconciling academic life with work as a maid.
Graduated, she moved to Rio de Janeiro, where she passed a public contest for teaching. Complementing her education, she studied Literature at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). In the 1980s, Conceição had her first contact with the Quilombohoje group, the cultural collective responsible for publishing the Cadernos Negros series.
And it was precisely in these notebooks that the girl from Minas Gerais made her debut in Literature, in 1990. Today, she has a master's degree in Brazilian Literature from PUC-Rio and a PhD in Comparative Literature from the Fluminense Federal University. Author of works translated into other languages and published abroad, the writer teaches as a visiting professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG).
Active militant of the black movement, Conceição registers her participation in events related to social political militancy. In 2017, he was the theme of the Ocupação at Itaú Cultural de São Paulo, about aspects of his life and literature. Versatile, the writer publishes poetry, essays and fiction, seeing her texts being read by an ever-increasing number of readers.
One of her main titles was the novel Ponciá Vicencio, written in 2003. The work deals with themes much discussed by Conceição, such as racial, gender and class discrimination. The book was translated into English and published in the United States in 2007. Not to mention his participation in German, American and English publications.
Its main struggle is in the recognition of black women as legitimate producers of knowledge. For this reason, he “hits the key” of the low number of black representatives on award lists and in the catalogs of major publishers. However, he continues to believe that writing and telling stories is the best way to face prejudice.
As we mentioned in the previous section, one of Conceição Evaristo's main works is Ponciá Vivencio, released in 2003. The story has a non-linear narrative marked by temporal cuts, thus mixing past and present. The genius of the book made it included in the lists of university entrance exams across the country.
In 2006, the author publishes Alleys of Memory in which, once again, she deals with the removal of a favela community with the same drama as the previous title. In it, as in so many of her works, the female figure emerges as the protagonist of resistance to poverty and discrimination.
In 2011, the volume of short stories Insubmissas Lágrimas de Mulheres is published, again mentioning gender relations in the social context marked by sexism and machismo. In 2014, the author launches Olhos d´Água, a book that reached the final of the Jabuti Award in the “Short Stories and Chronicles” category.
In June 2018, Conceição Evaristo made his candidacy official for the ABL, delivering his letter of introduction to run for chair number seven, already belonging to Castro Alves. Portal da Literatura Afro-Brasileira quotes an excerpt from the letter, in which the author expresses her “desire and disposition for dialogue and I hope for this opportunity”.
A large-scale campaign mobilized social networks and academic circles in favor of Conceição's choice. The election took place on August 30 and the author received one vote to occupy the coveted seat. However, the chosen one was filmmaker Cacá Diegues, one of the founders of the so-called Cinema Novo.
Even though she was not elected by the ABL, Conceição Evaristo continued to be justly honored for her body of work. The most recent honorable mentions were given in Livre! International Festival of Literature and Human Rights and the International Literary Festival of Paraty (Flip).
Romance
Poem
Tales
Participations in anthologies
Works published abroad
Source: Wikipedia
awards
I woman
a drop of milk
slips between my breasts.
a bloodstain
graces me between the legs.
half word bitten
escapes my mouth.
Vague wishes hint at hopes.
I-woman in red rivers
I inaugurate life.
in low voice
violent the eardrums of the world.
I foresee.
I anticipate.
Before-living
Before - now - what is to come.
I female-matrix.
I driving force.
I woman
seed shelter
perpetual motion
of the world.
– Conceição Evaristo, in the book “Poemas da remembrance and other movements”. Belo Horizonte: Nandyala, 2008.
children on the street
The banzo is reborn in me.
From the blackness of my oceans
the pain submerges revisited
skinning my skin
that rises in suns
and striking moons of a
time you are here.
The banzo is reborn in me
and the village woman
asks and cries out in the black flame
that burns between your legs
the desire to resume
to collect for
your womb-earth
the seeds
that the wind scattered
by the streets…
– Conceição Evaristo, in the book “Poemas da remembrance and other movements”. Belo Horizonte: Nandyala, 2008.
half tear
No,
the water does not flow
between fingers,
I have cupped hands
and in the hollow of my palms
half a drop is enough for me.
From the tears in my dry eyes,
just the half tone of the hiccup
to say the whole cry.
I still know how to see with one eye,
while the other,
the speck surrounds
and the vision that remains
I leak the invisible
and I see the unforgettable shadows
of those who are gone.
Of the severed tongue,
I say everything
I crush the silence
and in the rustle of mid-sound
I release the scream of the scream of the scream
and I find the previous speech,
the one who is silent,
she kept her voice and senses
in the labyrinths of memory.
– Conceição Evaristo, in the book “Poemas da remembrance and other movements”. Belo Horizonte: Nandyala, 2008.
Girl
Girl, I wanted to compose you
In verse,
sing the baffling
Mysteries
that play with you,
But your contours
Get away.
Girl, my poem first,
Take care of me.
– Conceição Evaristo, in the book “Poemas da remembrance and other movements”. Belo Horizonte: Nandyala, 2008.
