Imagining Palmares: The Work of Gayl Jones

Abstract

The long narrative poem Song for Anninho (1981), written by black U.S. writer Gayl Jones, interferes in the narrative of Brazilian colonial history as it highlights the female presence in the Republic of Palmares, rewrites the tale of resistance from the point of view of a black woman in the 17th Century, and, through her, reinvents the everyday lives, loves, disputes, and dreams of common people in the quilombo. The text reflects about historical truth, the constructed character of documents, selections and exclusions in language, and the importance of oral accounts to give visibility to experiences and identities marginalized by official history. In this special version, the dramatic report of the dreams, struggles, and destruction of the most famous Brazilian quilombo uses literary imagination to expand the memory and the archives of one of the most important facts in the history of the Americas, contributing to stimulate inter-American dialogue and to illuminate the African diaspora in Brazil and in the American continent.