Through the threads of memory: childhood and ancestry in Ponciá Vicêncio

Abstract

Conceição Evaristo, a writer from the State of Minas Gerais, brings as her mark the literary production born out of the life experience of the black person in Brazilian society, which shakes hegemonic literary structures and patterns. It is discussed in this article the thematic of childhood in the work of Conceição Evaristo, Ponciá Vicêncio, which can also be read as a breaking of standards by offering prominence to the child. As we will see, in this novel, the childhood of the characters transits historically between past and present, describing the different forms of learning, the games and frolics, fantasies, violence and oppression, in consonance with the identity inheritance of the characters, that, once adults, rethink the child’s look and feelings. In a society that prioritizes the point of view of the experienced adult, the small black child acquires centrality and is able to narrate the own paths, from their social, racial status and also their gender. As will be seen, a social critique of the slave-making past permeates the whole book. The novel is constituted from a sinuous structure, since its reading depends on the memories of the main character, who enters in several labyrinths until finding an exit to its suffering and prostration before the situation of social and racial inequality experienced by her and by her family. In this sense, Evaristo presents us the possibility of thinking infancy in a plural way, for it invites us to think twice about the conception of what the children’s universe is, beyond innocence, lost paradise, colorful toys, and standardizing school desks.