New Voices that Echo Old Ones: Clarice Fortunato, Conceição Evaristo and Carolina Maria de Jesus

Abstract

The aim of this text is to analyze Clarice Fortunato’s book Da vida nas ruas ao teto dos livros, establishing a dialogue with Conceição Evaristo’s Becos da memória and Diário de Bitita by Carolina Maria de Jesus. In the three books the authors, black and poor, of different generations, tell their own life stories. Fortunato and Evaristo managed to complete their schooling, obtaining Doctor of Letters degrees, while Carolina de Jesus did not have the same opportunities. Although inspired in events of her life, Conceição Evaristo sees her book as a novel; the form Clarice Fortunato gives her book is not exactly that of a novel, while Carolina’s, despite being called a diary, does not have the classic diary form with dated entries. In sum, the three books are autobiographical, although this does not mean that they portray lived experiences as they actually occurred, which is impossible. Reading these women’s trajectories enables one to get a vivid glimpse of Brazilian society’s inequalities and injustices, as well as the structural racism that oppresses black women.