Brazilian poetry and dictatorship: memory and disappearance in Ricardo Domeneck, Eduardo Sterzi, Paulo Ferraz and Priscila Figueiredo

Abstract

The article analyzes poems by Ricardo Domeneck, Eduardo Sterzi, Paulo Ferraz and Priscila Figueiredo, which deal with questions about serious human rights violations committed by the Brazilian State, as the memory of the disappeared or the victims of the military dictatorship. The analysis fits in the field of literature and transitional justice, with the aim of studying the intersection between literary invention and social memory, with regard to the legacy of crimes against humanity practiced by the Brazilian State. All of these authors were born in the 1970s, during the military dictatorship in Brazil, which lasted from 1964 to 1985. The analyzed poems were written in the 21st century, in a new cycle of cultural memory in Brazil, according to the hypothesis of Rebecca Atencio, in which themes related to the dictatorship returned to be the object of Brazilian literature more frequently. In the case of Paulo Ferraz, the poem concerns the Vargas Era (1930-1945). Domeneck, whose poem is mentioned in the report of the National Truth Commission, and Sterzi refer to the military dictatorship. Priscila Figueiredo deals with the continuities of the authoritarian past in the crimes of the Brazilian State after democratization. In these four cases, the poetry of these authors differs from that which Argentines gathered under the category of “hijos” have established.