ITAMAR VIEIRA JÚNIOR, THE TRANSLATOR OF QUILOMBOLA REALITIES

Abstract

In this paper we address the translation of quilombola realities in the novel Arado torcido, by the Bahian writer Itamar Vieira Júnior, through which the author elaborates an authentic portrait of deep Brazil. Vieira Júnior focuses on a rural universe whose traces of more than 300 years of slavery have a light of their own. All of this is reflected and highlighted in the everyday life of a population descended from the African diaspora and native natives who, in one way or another, keep their ancestry alive. Initially, we tried to understand the panorama of Água Negra, the fictitious hacienda where an anonymous quilombo is erected, on whose banks of two rivers, Utinga and Santo Antônio, are rooted families of workers who live in semi-slavery. Água Negra features older women born and raised without freedom, such as Donana or the centenarian Miúda, but also young people who learn to dream and long for a better future, such as Bibiana. On the other hand, male figures, equally representative, such as Zeca Sombrero Grande, the healer of jarê, who stands out both as a spiritual leader and as the most revered of the workers, and Severo, martyr, symbol of the struggle for the right to land, give life to a literature whose value is universal. The author translates and presents the social and historical reality of the quilombola.