Ancestral dialogues between the novels Úrsula (1859) by Maria Firmina dos Reis and Água de Barrela (2016) by Eliana Alves Cruz

Abstract

This article intends to intertwine the narratives of the novel Úrsula (1859) written by Maria Firmina dos Reis with Água de Barrela (2016), written by Eliana Alves Cruz. We noted that both texts, although coming from unalike times and genres, embody some points in common. By promoting a dialogue between them, we understand that literature whose narratives bear ancestry as a driving element of the writing process may undertake a type of diasporic manifestation that has literature as its tool, besides crossing historical and political issues. This article proposes a reading of the novels through the lens of ancestry as a central axis for fostering dialogue and connections between works produced in distinct contexts, with an emphasis on the emergence of an 'I' linked to a communal 'we' and on the protagonism of Black characters. It also analyzes the discursive strategies mobilized by the authors, which go beyond the notion of granting voice or speech to groups historically subalternized by the racist and colonialist mechanisms that shape historiographic and literary canons. Therefore, we aim to compare both novels, their points of intersection and their limits, to set forth how literature written by Black people is able to encompass a critical, a political bias and a type of social understanding imperative to the history of historiography and Brazilian literary studies.