Lima Barreto: the confessional nuisance

Abstract

Based on an analysis of the reception of Lima Barreto by Brazilian literary critics and historiography, this article revisits and problematizes the repeated classification of Lima Barreto’s writing as irregular due to its excessive confessional character. We defend the thesis that this “speaking of oneself” undertaken by the writer in his texts – we highlight Recordações do Escrivão Isaias Caminha – is of fundamental importance for the history of Afro-Brazilian literature, since it mobilizes and consolidates a tradition of the black author with a voice, free to assert himself and speak about his own issues, that is, to narrate with what we call here the black voice. To this end, we discuss the hegemonic reception of the author in Brazilian literary history, draw parallels between Lima Barreto’s literary project and other authors who, before and after him, also dedicated themselves to a writing that places the black voice in the foreground, and, finally, we dedicate ourselves to a breaf study of the work Recordações do Escrivão Isaías Caminha, highlighting it as a central piece not only of Lima Barreto’s project, but of an entire history of Afro-Brazilian literature that is constructed on the margins of traditional historiography.