Palimpsestos: Ana Miranda y la lectura de la historia literarria brasileña

We can notice in Brazilian literature —both past and contemporary— the presence of the historical novel in its several modalities which include traditional models but also contemporary formulations that break old models with irreverence. Among them are the historiographical metafictions (Hutcheon, 1991), which propose the rereading not only of history but also of literature itself. Therefore, in the large number of historical characters which are fictionalized by contemporary Brazilian historical novel in the last decades, this essay intends to discuss how Ana Miranda engages in reading the history of Brazilian literature through fiction in three of her novels. The first is Boca do inferno (1989), whose protagonists are two of the main representatives of Brazilian colonial barroque, Father Antônio Vieira and poet Gregório de Matos. Following the chronological order of protagonist writers, the next novel to be discussed is Dias & dias (2002), whose action is centered in Gonçalves Dias, a well known poet of national Romanticism. The third is A última quimera (1995), which makes an outline of Brazilian literature at the beginning of the 20th century, dealing with Augusto dos Anjos and Olavo Bilac. By inverting some traditional viewpoints, Ana Miranda proposes, as in a palimpsest, the rereading and discussion of the national literary cânon and its construction.