Maria José de Queiroz and the Liveliness of Contemporary Narratives

Abstract

Maria José de Queiroz is a writer from Minas Gerais who began publishing critical essays, novels, verses, short stories and two works of children’s literature at a very young age. Critics familiar with her work consider her to be a great contemporary writer, especially due to the vivacity of her poetic images and characters – aspects that will be presented in this article that analyzes the narratives of her book Amor Cruel, Amor Vingador (1996/2021), specifically the five short stories: “O Juramento”, “Velho com mulher moça”, “Iniciação ao Tratado do esperança”, “Ritinha-Chiquê ou A hora do carvoeiro” and “A morte ao pé da letra”. In her plots, the writer develops female characters who resist/or try to resist silencing, sexism and social prejudices. Our research consists of critical-theoretical, deductive and analytical bibliographic research, based on discussions by authors such as Maria Lúcia Barbosa (2018), Christini Roman de Lima (2021), among others. This research investigated love and hate in the short stories by Maria José de Queiroz mentioned above, which deal with enigmatic suspense stories, simulating police plots, delving into the description of marginalized classes - for example, women marked by the need to belong to the literary universe in a patriarchal society.