New Article by Luana de Souza-Sutter

Rememorying Slavery: Intergenerational Memory and Trauma in Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) and Conceição Evaristo’s Ponciá Vicêncio (2003)

Abstract: This paper looks at parallels in the articulation of memory and trauma between Toni Morrison’s Beloved and the more recent publication Ponciá Vicêncio, written in 2003 by the Afro-Brazilian writer Conceição Evaristo. It examines the novels’ illustration of slavery trauma and the creative investment of descendants of slaves in re-presenting traumatic family history. With this concern, it proposes a comparative reading of Beloved and Ponciá Vicêncio, focusing, first, on their representations of the embodiment of trauma; second, on their respective concepts of rememory and memory-thoughts – or pensamentos-lembranças; and third, on the descendants’ engagement with the revision of narratives of family past, through the characters Denver and Ponciá

Articleat Contemporary Women's Writing 11.3 (2019)