O sorriso de Rosa Maria: uma análise sobre a violência de raça e gênero em Um rio sem fim, de Verenilde Santos Pereira

Abstract

This Master thesis examines the gender and race violences in the novel Um rio sem fim (1998), by the Afro-indigenous, Amazonian author Verenilde Santos Pereira. Our premise is that the symbolic and physical aspects of violence inflicted upon the book’s characters come primarily from colonial power structures and the intersectionality between race and gender. The power play between Indigenous and non-Indigenous characters is subjected to investigation, as much as the intricate link between race and gender. Additionally, there’s a preliminary analysis of how the novel constructs a counter-colonial discourse (Bispo dos Santos, 2023) from its foundations and offers a nuanced perspective over Indigenous peoples and colonial processes through its narrative. The thesis also considers the power dynamics between Indigenous characters and missionaries, specially observing how some characters resist the necropolitical system imposed upon them (Mbembe, 2016). The same goes to the violences inflicted upon the female characters, deeply rooted in gendered racism (Kilomba, 2019). At last, we understand that Um rio sem fim, while amplifying the marginalized and oppressed voices of Afro-descent, Indigenous, and forest peoples – which echoes as silent screams through a white, Western society – also stands as a work of resistance against a literary canon that has long overlooked Pereira’s work.