Literatura e maternidade em contos de Conceição Evaristo e no romance As alegrias da maternidade, de Buchi Emecheta

Abstract

In our society, we are continuously confronted by discourses that try to find way to diminish the African Literature and the Afro-Brazilian Literature by connecting them to stereotypes that are often associated to the culture and to the racial ethnic relations. Nowadays, African literature and Afro-Brazilian literature allow its women writers to produce works that are free from manipulations and that demonstrate how much women have been placed in positions in which they are deprived of values, rights, and also diminished and underrated in some societies. They are targets in a sexual policy that aims to control their behavior and their lives. For that reason, we search for effective ways that may propitiate a discussion on the connections between African Literature/Afro-Brazilian Literature and motherhood. Therefore, based on studies by Dalcastagné (2011), Del Priore (2006), Cuti (2010), Borges (2018), amongst others, our main goal in this paper is to analyze the representation of motherhood in the works “As Alegrias da Maternidade” (2017), by Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta, and in the tales “Maria” and “Quantos filhos Natalina teve?”, taken from the “Olhos D’água”, an anthology by Brazilian writer Conceição Evaristo. Consequently, we will reflect on the discourses and spaces that are relegated to Black women and also the social roles that are imposed to them. Finally, we will also investigate on the strategies of these Black women to assure their own survival.