A infância nos romances afro-brasileiros de Conceição Evaristo

This paper's goal is to investigate how the childhood representation of black children happens in the afro-Brazilian novels, Ponciá Vicêncio (2003) and Becos da Memória (2006) both by Conceição Evaristo. Our investigative view came from the presupposition that black children rarely appear at Brazilian literature, clearly occupying a peripheral place at the literary tradition. However, it's been found that these children gain visibility and a plausible/legitimate representation and authorized in the contemporary-afro-Brazilian literary works at Conceição Evaristo's novels. By its political character we consider that these stories appear as attempts at selfrepresentation of the childhood by these black writers, in a way that the political and aesthetic project of the current literature comes to meet those ideals perfectly. The black children narrated in Conceição Evaristo's afro-Brazilian literature are made as historical actors capable of reacting, engendering tensions and raising conflicts for escape moments, as a way of resistance against the oppressions lived by them. Therefore, the goal is to examine the figuration of the childhood's social space in these novels, highlighting the way that the author uses the memory's aesthetization to put the black child on stage and present the childish, that without losing sight the childhood here discussed comes from the premise of a historical, cultural building susceptible to social variations.