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- BODY-KALUNGA: THE FLOW OF IDENTITY AND MEMOIRS IN UM DEFEITO DE COR, BY ANA MARIA GONÇALVES
Black-Brazilian literature. Um defeito de cor. Memory. Identities. Diasporic subject.
In Um defeito de cor (2006), by the Brazilian writer Ana Maria Gonçalves, the memoirs’ trajectory of Kehinde “Luiza” is depicted as a legacy to her son, Omotunde “Luiz Gama”. Luiza’s grieving process is driven by her body memory. The narrator-protagonist, a former slave, reveals to the reader a quest for herself through the nuances of an endless search for her son. Thus, this paper’s goal is to analyze the construction of both the memoirs as well as the identity flow of the protagonist Kehinde “Luiza”, which speaks to the African Diasporic movement. The analysis is based on Abdias Nascimento (2016), Luciana Brito (2018), and Mônica Lima e Souza (2008), theorists who promote dialogues about the African Diaspora and slavery in Brazil. The research is based on Leda Maria Martins (2003), Paul Ricoeur (2007), and Roland Walter (2011) for the analytical category of memory. Frantz Fanon (2008), Paul Gilroy (2012), Stuart Hall (2013; 2014), and W. E. B. Du Bois (2021) were drawn on for the analytical category of identity. It is possible to observe that the protagonist surfaces an identity in her narrative flow which reflects the subject's diasporic experience with multiple cultural encounters, sometimes juxtaposed, sometimes confronted. The wandering memory represents reconciliation to the loss of oneself and one's kinsmen.