Afro-Brazilian literature
Literature by Black Brazilian writers that engages with Black life, identity, history, and racial relations in Brazil.
Black Brazilian literature: Writing by Black authors in Brazil across literary forms and historical periods. A broader frame for work specifically identified with Afro-Brazilian literary traditions.
Maria Firmina dos Reis: A nineteenth-century Brazilian author whose novel Úrsula depicts slavery and its violence. Her 1859 novel is an early landmark of antislavery fiction by a Black Brazilian woman.
Escrevivência: A literary concept developed by Conceição Evaristo, joining lived experience, writing, and collective memory. It names a method by which personal testimony can carry histories shared by Black women.
Quilombhoje: A São Paulo literary group founded in 1980 to promote Black Brazilian writing and culture. Its workshops and publications gave writers a sustained collective platform.
Úrsula: An 1859 novel by Maria Firmina dos Reis portraying enslaved people and condemning slavery. Its antislavery narrative makes it a foundational case of Afro-Brazilian fiction.
Abolition of slavery in Brazil: The legal end of slavery in Brazil, declared in 1888 by the Golden Law. Its aftermath shaped literary accounts of freedom, exclusion, and Black citizenship.
Lima Barreto: A Brazilian novelist and journalist whose work exposed social hierarchy, racism, and political hypocrisy. His fiction made racial discrimination and exclusion visible in early twentieth-century Brazil.
Racial democracy in Brazil: The claim that Brazil has achieved racial harmony through mixture and lacks significant racial conflict. Writers challenge this national myth by depicting structural racism and unequal lives.
Literary canon: A body of works treated as central to a literary tradition through institutions and criticism. Afro-Brazilian writers and scholars contest their exclusion from Brazil's established canon.
Quarto de Despejo: A diary by Carolina Maria de Jesus, published in 1960, about life in a São Paulo favela. Its documentary voice unsettles literary conventions and records poverty from a Black woman's perspective.