ON THE MARGINS, THE SPEECH: THE LITERATURE OF PATRÍCIA MELO AS A REPRESENTATION OF THE INVISIBLE IN LESS THAN ONE

 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.8211682

 

Alexandra Alves da Silva

Graduated in Letters (Portuguese/Literatures) from the State University of Rio de Janeiro – Faculty of Teacher Training (2004). Master's student in Literary Studies (PPLIN/UERJ) is a member of GEFIS – Feminist and Intersectional Studies Groups (GEFIS/UERJ-CNPq). She has been working in basic education since 2001, as a teacher of Portuguese, Literature and Writing in primary and secondary education (private network). Her research is centered on systemic and decolonial violence by women. Lattes: https://lattes.cnpq.br/7045452830200358. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1287-0559. Email: prof.alexandra.ead@gmail.com.

ABSTRACT

The present work aims, from the reading of the novel Menos que um (2022), by Patrícia Melo, to promote some reflections about the importance of literature as an object of representation of reality and how issues of gender, class and race have been recurrent . in the author's works. In addition to the novel's content being aligned with decolonial and intersectional thinking, the author's incursion into verisimilar work is also significant, as she appropriates a literature whose speech space denounces the permanence of colonial practices as a strong political project. Under the theoretical contribution of authors such as Teresa de Lauretis (1994), Françoise Vergès (2022), Mbembe (2021), I emphasize the idea that the maintenance of this social ill is also linked to necropolitics. Starting from events that feedback Brazilian illnesses perpetuated by colonial behavior to recent Brazilian issues, the characters involved in the novel, mainly Glenda and Jessica, intertwine, creating a kaleidoscope composed of the excluded, whose future seems to have no prospect of change for some.

Keywords: Intersectionality. Decolonialism. Female authority. Feminist literary criticism.