“That which whitens the black way of being”

the rewriting in the retelling process of Eliana Alves Cruz

Abstract

By recounting a family’s story marked by enslavement, Água de Barrela, by Eliana Alves Cruz, focuses on characters’ experiences that were forgotten by time. This research aims at understanding historical narratives as spaces for negotiation and investigating a representation of colonial wounds in the author’s production from Rio de Janeiro. Besides that, it works towards demonstrating how the territorial diaspora, the vilification of bodies, and the lack of rights contributed to the black women’s subjectivity and silencing in the country - and how literature can change this logic by retelling history against the grain (BENJAMIN, 1989). In this sense, authors such as Gloria Anzaldúa (1987), bell hooks (2019), and Patricia Hill Collins and Carla Akotirene (2018) serve as a theoretical framework to promote reflections on the practice of violence, showing the path to overcome the scars from broad decolonial questionings, and encompassing not just black silencing but persistent white posture.