deus-dará: O Rio de Janeiro como espaço de (des)encontro durante séculos

Abstract

"deus-dará" is a novel by Alexandra Lucas Coelho that spans seven days, in different years, and clearly draws inspiration from the Book of Genesis; it presents seven characters, as its subtitle makes clear: "Sete dias na vida de São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro ou o Apocalipse segundo Lucas, Judite, Zaca, Tristão, Inês, Gabriel & Noé" [Seven Days in the Life of St Sebastian of Rio de Janeiro according to Luke, Judith, Zaca, Tristan, Agnes, Gabriel and Noah]. Through these characters, with Rio de Janeiro very present on every page, the hybrid narrator, writing in both European and Brazilian Portuguese, guides the readers through five centuries of history and immerses them in the social, religious and cultural climates of Portugal and Brazil during the colonial and postcolonial periods. The purpose of this work, grounded in the study of postcolonialism, is to explore how the meanings of various points of view on the history of Portuguese colonization and its consequences have been constructed and reconstructed. In addition to invoking the Portuguese colonial heritage, visible in the violence that Brazilians are experiencing today, particularly in Rio de Janeiro, Lucas Coelho's book confronts the Portuguese with the question of their current relationship with their past.