Makunaimã on the stage of contemporary indigenous literature

collective authorship and political resistance 90 years after Macunaíma

Abstract

The following article is a reflection on the aesthetic-political dialogue that the work Makunaimã: o mito através do tempo (2019) establishes with the rhapsody Macunaíma, o herói sem nenhum caráter (1928), by Mário de Andrade. We trace an analytical path through the content and defining characteristics of the publishing of 2019 until the comparison with Andrade’s Macunaíma. Then, we reveal how it is possible to integrate Makunaimã in the core of indigenous literature of current Brazil and, moreover, we discuss why it is important to do so (having Graúna, Krenak, and Inês de Almeida as critical support). Under the theoretical postcolonial perspective (with Fanon, Spivak, and Bhabha), we establish dialogues between Makunáima or Makunaimã, the indigenous divinity of the immemorial time, and the indigenous voices of our time, thinking of the collective indigenous work as a postcolonial action. In this arena, the colonizer views and the anti-colonial onslaughts are in dispute, caught by a multiform artistic work which has a lot to say about Brazilian literature through time.