Beyond the Curtains: Unveiling Afro-Brazilian Women Writers

I want to speak about us, because time has always left us behind the curtains, camouflaging us generally as domestics.

--Esmeralda Ribeiro

I cannot deny the contradictions within me.

--Miriam Alves

The complexity and inherent contradictions of the place of the Afro-Brazilian woman in the larger context of Brazilian "paradise" can be summed up by what Marilena Chaui, in Conformismo e Resistência, describes as the drama of the family setting through which pleasure is provided but is also a "nucleus of tension and conflicts" (145). ¹ In this mixture of social conformism and resistance, the Afro-Brazilian woman is multiply burdened. Often fulfiling the roles of mother, lover, provider, spokesperson, encourager, nourisher, she becomes fragmented in an effort to assert her individuality in the midst of social conventions and racial stereotypes. To break these stereotypical roles, the Afro-Brazilian woman not only must break the conventional rules, but also must compound her roles even further by becoming militant and subversive, as opposed to being surbordinate. And this is where, in most cases, the recurrent concern lies in self-mystification in order to recuperate the dignity of that fragmented construction.

Dating from the era of slavery, the Afro-Brazilian woman has been portrayed as a slave, a domestic servant, a black mammy, or at best a "mulatta," a sexual object whose function is to satisfy the perverse pleasures of the master without any hesitation. In contrast to these images, contemporary Afro-Brazilian women articulate, through the written word, their once silenced and marginalized voices, demanding respect and dignity as well as the freedom to be who they are without being apologetic or patronizing. As Yeda Pessoa de Castro points out in "Também Mulher, Imagem de Deus" (Woman as well, image of God), Afro-Brazilian women's writing attempts to "rescue the image of the Afro-Brazilian woman from the folcloric arena and plot in which she has been subjected as an absent protagonist" (qtd. in Quintas 88). The metaphor of the "absent protagonist" captures Miriam Alves's allusion to Esmeralda Ribeiro's assertion, "I want to speak about us, because time has always left us behind the curtains, camouflaging us generally in domestic work" (qtd. in Enfim . . . Nós 23). And this zealous will to go beyond socially imposed curtains lies in the heart of Enfim . . . Nós/Finally . . . Us and specific texts by Miriam Alves (Momentos de Busca and Estrelas no Dedo), Esmeralda Ribeiro (Malungos e Milongas), and Sônia Fátima (Marcas, Sonhos e Raízes) that form the analytical basis of this study. Although the poetry written by female members of Quilombhoje ² predominates and has varied social and individual concerns, the prose written by both male and female members alike has been unduly neglected in critical terms. The attempt here is to provide a window into the stubborn hopes, the inspiring travails, and the compelling contradictions of contemporary Afro-Brazilian movement for equality and justice.

Quilombhoje's collective dilemma of getting recognized by commercial publishers and university presses features as a familiar constant in the case of women writers, who are even more marginalized than their male counterparts. Although these categories of "male" and "female" writing are reductionist, being black and female in Brazil is a double bind of invisibility. And it is against this background that the publication of Finally Us sets an encouraging precedent in the dissemination of quality writing by Afro-Brazilian women. In its diversity and richness, this collection reveals salient preoccupations that challenge and engage these writers who have chosen the word as a weapon against silence and subjugation in a society that still claims to be racially democratic. The celebrative and relieving tone captured in "finally" is a betrayal of many years of hoping, anguishing, and yet not giving up, as Miriam Alves's prologue clearly captures:

Finally . . . Us exposes naked intimacies and sharp sentiments with agile, languid, and sensual curves, without false modesty. It rebels...