In the shadows of coloniality: violence in Alice Walker's "The welcome table" and Conceição Evaristo's "Duzu-Querença"

Abstract

This paper aims at analyzing two short stories, “The welcome table”, by the African-American writer Alice Walker, and “Duzu-Querença”, by the African-Brazilian writer Conceição Evaristo. The core of the analysis is to understand the way both literary narratives represent violence perpetuated throughout History by a colonial matrix of power. Starting from this point, we observe racialized and gender-based violence through the lens of decoloniality considering the development of the plot and the figurative dynamics of the characters. In order to do so, in the first section we introduce some theorizations on (de)coloniality and its unfoldment through violence and its relations to Literature. In the aftermath, we analyze the literary texts taking into account the concerns raised in the theoretical discussion observing how the semantization of oppressions supported by coloniality is built.