Transatlantic Routes by Beatriz Nascimento

Review of the work Todas as distâncias: poemas, aforismos e ensayos de Beatriz Nascimento

Abstract

Review of the work All Distances: Poems, Aphorisms, and Essays by Beatriz Nascimento, organized by Bethania Gomes and Alex Ratts, published in 2015 by Ogum's Toques Negros. In addition to Beatriz's texts, the collection includes contributions from Arnaldo Xavier, Conceição Evaristo, Christen Smith, Iléa Ferraz, and Lúcia Gato. The work All Distances: Poems, Aphorisms, and Essays by Beatriz Nascimento contributes to deepening the questioning of histories made by white colonizing hands in Latin America and the Caribbean. Beatriz calls upon Black intellectuals to undertake the vital task of writing history with Black hands in an Afro-American intercultural dialogue, starting from our subjectivities, understanding ourselves first and foremost as human and historical beings and no longer as mere objects of study. Bethania and Alex are right when they say that Beatriz is making a comeback. For in the ancestral connections of Blackness, the past and the distant become close when memory is valued and the evocation of its cosmic and historical nature becomes extremely necessary in the present day.