Manifesto destiny: Literary interventions from the Periferia of São Paulo

ABSTRACT

This article examines three manifestos associated with the Brazilian contemporary cultural phenomenon known as literatura marginal, a movement that seeks to redress the ills of differentiated citizenship and social, economic, and political disenfranchisement. These manifestos serve as important touchstones for reading literature from the periphery given the ways they self-consciously engage with Brazil's literary history. They constitute an intervention into the way Brazilian literature has been published, consumed, historicized, and canonized. Accordingly, this article argues that these manifestos reveal a deep generative political impulse that enhances our reading of the poetry and prose identified as literatura marginal.

KEYWORDS:

• Contemporary literary manifestos
• Ferréz
• literatura marginal
• Sérgio Vaz

Notes

1. 100 Artists' Manifestos, edited by Alex Danchev, presents a collection of manifestos by visual artists, including famous manifestos by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (“The Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism”), Francis Picabia (“Dada Manifesto”), and Oswald de Andrade (“Cannibalist Manifesto”), as well as dozens more that history has largely forgotten. Another volume, Manifesto: A Century of Isms, edited by Mary Ann Caws, includes 225 manifestos produced in relation to such varied aesthetic movements as Futurism, Cubism, Fauvism, Surrealism, Ultraism, Thingism, Concretism, Personism, and more. Notably, this volume omits the “Cannibalist Manifesto” and includes only one manifesto from a Brazilian writer: Mário de Andrade's “Extremely Interesting Preface.”

2. The São Paulo literatura marginal [marginal literature] movement of the early twenty-first century should not be confused with the literatura marginal or, more commonly, poesia marginal movement of the 1970s, based largely in Rio de Janeiro. The poets associated with poesia marginal in Rio de Janeiro were called “marginal” because of their inability or unwillingness to gain access to the literary market through mainstream publishing houses. It is also referred to as the “mimeograph generation” in reference to the technology most frequently used to disseminate their works. The poetry of this group is noted for its anti-intellectual and anti-government posture in reaction to the repression and censorship enacted by the military dictatorship then in power. Notable writers include Torquato Neto, Waly Salomão, Ana Cristina César, and Chacal. Unlike the São Paulo literatura marginal writers, these writers from Rio come primarily from upper middle-class backgrounds.

3. During the twentieth century, the 1930s and 1970s constitute two periods during which literature adopted an acute interest in representing, cataloguing, and critiquing social and political problems in the country.

4. Other notable figures associated with literatura marginal include Alessandro Buzo (Guerreira, 2007; Favela Toma Conta, 2008), Allan da Rosa (Da Cabula, 2008; Pedagoginga, autonomia e mocambagem, 2013), Jenyffer Nascimento (Terra fértil, 2014), Sacolinha (Estação terminal, 2010; Manteiga de cacau, 2012), Tubarão Dulixo (Viver entre os porcos sem comer da lavagem; 2015), Walner Danziger (Vênus de Aluguel, 2009; Gilete na mão do macaco, 2010), Sonia Regina Bischain (Nem tudo é silêncio, 2010; Vale dos atalhos, 2013; Rua de trás, 2015), Fábio Mandingo (Morte e vida virgulina, 2013; Muito como um rei, 2015), and Rodrigo Ciríaco (Te pego lá for a, 2008).

5. Vaz subsequently published his manifesto in Cooperifa: Antropofagia Periférica. For further information about the video art collectives CineBecos, Núcleo de Comunicação Alternativa or NCA, Arte na Periferia, and Mudança com Conhecimento Cinema e Arte or MUCCA, see Guilhermo Aderaldo, “Que ‘periferia’ é essa? Notas a partir de uma etnografia de realizadores e exibidores de ‘vídeos populares' ligados a regiões precárias em São Paulo/Brasil.”

6. In Brazil, social classes are referred to by letters (e.g., upper class: A; upper middle class: B., middle class: C). Detailed information about class distinctions can be found on the website of the IGBE (Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics): http://www.ibge.gov.br/home/ (translator's note).

7. Ferréz here references the poesia marginal movement of the 1970s. Some literary critics have refused to call Ferréz and other writers from the periphery “marginal,” in order to avoid confusion with the 1970s movement (translator's note).

8. The author here introduces a play on words. “Miami pra eles? / ‘Me ame pra nós!’” Miami, as pronounced in Portuguese, carries the same pronunciation as “Love me” (translator's note).

9. A quilombola is one who resides in a quilombo. Quilombos were communities of escaped slaves. The term has come to be associated with any form of active resistance to racial oppression (translator's note).

10. The term borba-gato refers to the bandeirantes or early pioneer-explorers whose journeys into the interior of Brazil helped establish Brazil's national borders (translator's note).