Margins: poetics of exclusion in ‘a people agree to not die’, by Conceição Evaristo

Abstract

Literature has constantly been used by female and male writers as a tool for denunciation, social criticism, a space of reflection on the human condition, for human rights, the right to literature for writers from outlying ghettos and for the right to the act of writing. With this idea in mind, this article discusses the poetry of exclusion and the social portrait of the ghetto in the narrative of Conceição Evaristo. The outflying ghettos are a fertile environment where literature is strongly present. The literature from the ghettos intends to give voice to those excluded from society, in a new movement that came to diversify literary production and encourage reading habits on these marginalized environments. Exclusion is not simply an economical process, as it encompasses countless particularities of the social, cultural, and political life of those who are distant from the spaces of power. In this regard, Conceição Evaristo is understood as a writer that represents the themes of fighting against racial prejudice, of resistance, of the valorization of memories, oralities, and many others. The short story ‘A gente combinamos de não morrer’, from the book Olhos D'água (2014), by Conceição Evaristo, illustrates the reality of pain, exclusion, and violence of the black population of Brazil, who is routinely neglected by society. Guiding the theoretical framework are the thoughts of Candido (1995), Rama (2015), Schwarz (1983), Dalcastagnè (2008, 2012), Nascimento (2006), Mbembe (2018), among others.