THE POETICS OF RESISTANCE IN ITAMAR VIEIRA JUNIOR

Abstract

The Coração sem medo, the novel that concludes Itamar Vieira Junior's “Trilogia da Terra”, follows the journey of Rita Preta, a cashier and single mother whose life crumbles after the disappearance of her son Cid, a teenager living in the outskirts of Salvador. The anguished search for the boy's whereabouts triggers a physical and
emotional journey that traverses childhood memories, historical violence, and the legacy of displacement in her lineage. Forced to revisit her early departure from her homeland, domestic work in the city, and the trauma of losing her siblings, Rita confronts a permanent feeling of displacement, revealing the marks of an ancestry subjected to centuries of racism, inequality, and territorial expropriation. By articulating past and present, the novel exposes the continuity of colonial structures that shape urban daily life: disappearances, precariousness, violence, and threats to the Black female body. Even so, Rita finds in her imagination, oral tradition, and connection to her lineage a possible key to surviving and reinventing her own future. The power of ancestral narratives, echoing the generations expelled from their land, constitutes the vital axis of the book, which transforms pain into testimony and resistance.