Black writers are hallmarks of Brazilian history and literature

Maria Firmina and Conceição Evaristo, albeit distant in time, are united by being two of the main black authors enshrined in Brazilian literature.

The former was born in a family of slaves in São Luís (Maranhão), in the northeast region of the country, in march 1822. Only baptised on 21 December 1825, she is considered the first black female writer in Brazil and the first author of an abolitionist novel in the entire Portuguese language. Evaristo, in turn, was born in a humble family in the city of Belo Horizonte in 1946. An accomplished author, she would go on to win one national literature’s major honours, the Jabuti Award.

To Professor Cíntia Schwantes, from the Department of Literary Theory and Literatures of the University of Brasilia (UnB), the authors are major names of national literature and have overcome the barriers of the publishing market, “averse to women and black writers”. In addition, she explains, they give voice to a segment of the population that is still underrepresented in the national canon.

"Maria Firmina writes characters of much relevance, of an extreme nobility of feeling. Conceição, in turn, talks about black characters. Becos da Memória (Memory Alleys), for example, is a novel in which the protagonist is collective: black, favela-dwellers; people who escape stereotypes and have their contradictions, passions and desires," she says.

History of Maria Firmina

The Maranhão native was a pioneer in denouncing the oppression of blacks and women in nineteenth-century Brazil. Unfortunately, she was not recognised in life. Of African descent and living in a context of extreme racial and social segregation, she became an orphan at the age of five. She would go on to graduate and work as a teacher and was a constant presence in the local press, publishing poetry, fiction, chronicles, enigmas and riddles.

Firmina worked on the collection and preservation of texts of oral culture and literature and also as a songwriter, famously known for a hymn she composed in praise of the abolition of slavery. She wrote thee narrative fiction work: Ursula, from 1859, the first novel published by a black woman in all of Latin America, which discusses slavery; Gupeva, from 1861; and the short story The Slave, from 1887, which contributed to the debate the country was then living on whether or not to abolish slavery.

Her compilation of poems, in turn, brings texts strongly marked by a restlessness and female subjectivity that are sometimes melancholic. After 95 years of a life dedicated to reading, writing, researching and teaching, Maria Firmina died in 1917 in the municipality of Guimarães, also in the state of Maranhão. In 2017, on the occasion of the centenary of her death, Firmina's books were re-released.

Conceição Evaristo

A writer since childhood, Evaristo only had her first stories published at the age of 44. What she heard and lived through turned her inspiration into a form of survival. Her short stories won the Jabuti, Brazil's most prestigious literary award, in 2015. With a degree in literature, a Master's Degree in Brazilian Literature and a PhD in Comparative Literature, she is an active member of the movement for the appreciation of black culture.

In 1990, she published her short stories and poems in the series Cadernos Negros (Black Diaries). Versatile, Evaristo writes poetry, fiction and essays. Her publications have already been sold in Germany, England and the United States. In 2003, she published the novel Ponciá Vicêncio. In 2006, came her second novel, the Becos da Memória (Memory Alleys), which tells the story of a favela community about to be forcefully removed.

Her poetry, until then restricted to anthologies and the Cadernos Negros series, gains greater visibility after the publication in 2008 of the volume Poemas de recordação e outros movimentos (Poems of remembrance and other movements). In 2011, she released the short story compilation “Insubmissas lágrimas de mulheres” ("The unsubjugated tears of women"), which addresses gender relations in a social context marked by racism and sexism. In 2016, she released another fiction book, Histórias de leves enganos e parecenças ("Stories of mild deception and appearances").

In recent years, three of her books, which continue to receive new editions in Brazil, have been translated into French and published in Paris by publishing house Anacaona. In 2018, the writer received the Literature Award, a lifetime achievement award granted by the Government of Minas Gerais.