On trips and returns

space and homoeroticism in Nossos Ossos, by Marcelino Freire

Abstract

This article presents a reflection on the displacement of the narrator-protagonist Heleno, from the novel Nosso Ossos, by Marcelino Freire. Therefore, the hypothesis is defended that the novel in question articulates the figure of travel to the possibility of identity (self)knowledge, insofar as desires, estrangements and contact with others produce dissensions, ruptures, agencies and new itineraries. The narrator Heleno undertakes a journey of spatial displacement, but also a journey of personal and subjective learning. It is a body that presents discordant marks and discourses dissonant with those formulated about an ideal body, being relegated to the space of the abject and, therefore, demands recognition as an integral part of different social spaces. Furthermore, talking about queer bodies and mobility in literature implies a subversion of conventional standards in literary production, since such displaced bodies belong to narratives that were, at times, left on the margins of literary criticism. The discussion is based on the propositions of Doreen Massey (2015), Louro (2020), Butler (2000, 2019), among others.