Ponciá Vicêncio is a novel written by the Brazilian author from Minas Gerais, Conceição Evaristo.
About the author:
Conceição is a black woman, poet and writer who tells through her work the racial inequality present in our country. Reflecting on the reality of black women like herself, Conceição denounces the structural racism in Brazil while searching for and recovering the ancestry of Brazilian blackness which was erased with the arrival of the Portuguese in our country and, mainly, with the enslavement of black men, women, and children (LUIZA BRANDINO, 2019). Conceição had a childhood marked by poverty, living in the now extinct Pindura Saia slum in Belo Horizonte. She wanted to be a teacher, but since there were no national exams for teachers in Minas Gerais, Conceição moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1973 and got a degree in Language Arts at UFRJ, as well as a master's degree in Brazilian Literature at PUC Rio and a doctorate in Comparative Literature at Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF) (LUIZA BRANDINO, 2019).
However, it was in 1958 that Conceição won her first literature prize, after finishing primary school, with her high school essay. Involved in projects that aimed to analyze, study and influence the Brazilian reality since her adolescence -especially of black youth such as the Catholic Worker Youth movement which she joined when she was 17- Conceição was always very engaged with racial issues, and with her short stories her poetry and her novels, she has won numerous awards, such as the "Premio Jabuti" in 2015, the "Prêmio Faz Diferença" in 2016 from the newspaper O Globo in the prose category, the "Prêmio de Literatura do Governo de Minas Gerais" in 2018, and the "Prêmio Jabuti" in 2019 in the category of Literary Personality of the Year. Her first short stories were published in the series Cadernos Negros in 1978, which contained short stories by numerous black authors with an Afro-Brazilian theme (WARLEY SOUZA, 2020).
About the book:
!!May contain spoilers!!
One of Conceição's most famous novels is Ponciá Vicêncio, published in 2003, telling the story of a woman descendant of a slave family who searches for the mystery and history of her ancestors, more specifically her grandfather, as a way to find her own identity. The novel is narrated in the third person, so we are able to enter into the character's thoughts at the same time as we analyze and see the deep and suffering history of the other characters. The story is told in flashbacks, starting when Ponciá was very young, and was afraid to pass under the rainbows and change sex (a metaphor for the deep-rooted machismo), a legend present in her family and in the village where she lived, which was previously owned by slave owners. When she goes to the city to try to have a better life, she gets separated from her brother and her mother, the only family she had left. Arriving there, because she is black, the only job she could get was as a maid. Ponciá had a suffering life, losing family, friends, and children, who were not even born, and being physically abused by her husband. Ir was Because of this life full of losses, uncertainties, and lack of information that Ponciá Vicêncio had about her ancestors and her family, and because everyone related her to her grandfather, whom she did not live with for a long time, Ponciá becomes apathetic, numb, and lost without knowing herself completely. This mystery of why Ponciá is so similar to her grandfather, who killed his wife and cut his arm off in a moment of madness because he was abused by his "owners" when he was a slave, remains until the end of the book, with the objective of characterizing and provoking in the reader at least a minimum of the feeling that Ponciá felt of not knowing herself and of searching for her personality and her roots.
This book is, for sure, extremely important for Brazilian literature, for representing the life and the search of a black woman for her personality, meaning, and ancestry, and also for representing the reality of Brazil today, which is still structured by racism and machismo, emphasizing the importance that all of us must be anti-racist and feminist in order to have racial and gender equality in our country. Conceição Evaristo is one of the most influential and inspiring Brazilian writers, and Ponciá Vicêncio is a book full of extremely important reflections for us to understand the reality in which we live. So, if you don't know the book yet, or haven't read it, we recommend it to all of you!
Sources:
LUIZA BRANDINO. Conceição Evaristo: biografia, principais obras. Disponível em: <https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/>.
WARLEY SOUZA. Conceição Evaristo: vida, características, obras. Disponível em: <https://mundoeducacao.uol.com.br/>.
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