Representations of the immigrant in the work of Guimarães Rosa

Abstract

Academic studies about immigration, exile and otherness have increasingly expanded in different areas of knowledge, including literary criticism and literary theory. The figure of the immigrant and his or her representation in the literary space arouse great interest, since they present us a variety of themes and questions. All of this require from the literary critic a greater sensitivity and a plurality of views. In the Brazilian literary scene, the appearance of the figure of the immigrant is closely related to the intensification of immigration in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In light of this, our intention in this paper is to give relevance to a subject that is part of the formation of our literature and our society. We selected as our corpus the consecrated work of Guimarães Rosa, one of the greatest Portuguese-writing authors, in order to show the recurrence of this theme even in a canonical work. As we shall see, issues such as otherness, identity, hybridity and the tensions that stemmed from differences are of crucial importance in his narratives on immigration. We hope to show how the discussion of this topic can be enriched with the support of culturalist or post-colonial theories.