DISCURSIVIDADE PÓS-COLONIAL E A ESCRITA LITERÁRIA DE YTANAJÉ CARDOSO EM CANUMÃ: A TRAVESSIA

POSTCOLONIAL DISCOURSE AND THE LITERARY WRITING OF YTANAJÉ CARDOSO IN CANUMÃ: A TRAVESSIA

Abstract

Ytanajé Coelho Cardoso is an indigenous writer of Munduruku descent, author of the novel Canumã: a travessia, published in 2019. The novel tells the stories and experiences of a traditional Munduruku people who live in a region bathed by the Canumã River, located in the state of Amazonas. The term crossing suggests a look at the transformations that afflict the traditional roots of an indigenous community. Thus, the construction of this narrative raises awareness about the preservation of the indigenous cultural legacy, seeking, above all, to keep alive the language and memories of a historically neglected and silenced people. That said, we present an analysis based on a reading of Ytanajé Cardoso's novel in the light of postcolonial discourse. According to Ana Mafalda Leite (2020), postcolonialism includes discursive and performative strategies that frustrate the colonial vision of order. In other words, it is a practice that goes against dominant discourses. When thinking about the place of Original Peoples in history, Pachamama (2020) highlights the construction of their invisibility as historical subjects and emphasizes the pulsating protagonism of these peoples. Historiography presents an exclusionary discourse, a limited view of the peoples of the forest. Ytanajé Cardoso's writing thus represents a position that goes against the stigmas and mistaken views rooted in our society. Thus, the construction of a narrative text by an indigenous author, especially a novel that is still little explored in the Amazon indigenous literature scene, is a political act and follows a path of reconstruction and knowledge.