Six Tales from the Age of Generals

This essay analyzes six short stories written and published in Brazil during the darkest decade of the military government, the years right after Institutional Act #5 was issued – roughly, the years between 1968 and 1979, which historian Elio Gaspari calls the decade of “unabashed dictatorship” (200...

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Bibliographic Details
Author: Cunha, João Manuel dos Santos
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2012
Country:Brasil
Institution:Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM)
Repository:Literatura e Autoritarismo
Language:Portuguese
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/75398
Online Access:http://periodicos.ufsm.br/LA/article/view/75398
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Dictatorship
Repression
Violence
Torture
Brazilian short fiction
Ditadura
Repressão
Violência
Tortura
Conto brasileiro
Description
Summary:This essay analyzes six short stories written and published in Brazil during the darkest decade of the military government, the years right after Institutional Act #5 was issued – roughly, the years between 1968 and 1979, which historian Elio Gaspari calls the decade of “unabashed dictatorship” (2002), when institutionalized violence and torture were used by the authoritarian régime as an instrument to repress and exterminate opposition to military rule. Through the analysis of short stories by Flávio Moreira da Costa, Luiz Fernando Emediato and Roberto Drummond, the prevalence of themes related to the political scenario in the production of short fiction in Brazil at that time is made evident, as a fact that contributed to the permanence and renewal of Brazilian literature in that period.