Afro-Brazilian female literature in the classroom: a cutting inspired in the perception of students of the Professional Master’s course in Literature of Uemasul

Abstract

The artistic-literary production is directly linked to the historical-social context and constitutes a form of representation of the society in which one lives. In this article, we propose important questions about the space of Afro-Brazilian female authors in Brazilian classrooms in the perception of students of the Professional Master’s in Literature of State University of the Tocantina Region of Maranhão (UEMASUL), who studied the subject Afro-Brazilian Memories, Histories, and Cultural Identities. We highlight three Afro-Brazilian female authors who were studied in the course in question and emphasize the importance of their works reaching the classrooms of Brazil, considering the representativeness and the real need to give voice to minorities so damaged throughout history, in the face of the construction and strengthening of a white and masculinist literary canon. To substantiate this article, we rely on the authors: Assis Duarte, Cuti, Kabengele Munanga, and Ngozi Adichie Chimamanda. In this text, after we present the Afro-Brazilian female authors, we share clips from interviews with Portuguese language teachers about the space of these figures in the classrooms they attend, since we need to combat the silencing suffered by these authors during the formation of our society and, consequently, of our literature.