On Subterranean Women and Narrative Exhumation

Reading of Sheyla Smanioto’s Desesterro (2015)

Abstract

This article aims to propose a reading of the novel Desesterro (2015), written by Sheyla Smanioto, born in São Paulo. Supported by theoretical texts about marginal literature, marginal identities and subalternity, the reading starts from the understanding that Smanioto’s text incorporates subjectivation processes. Those processes deal with characters differently from most literary texts, since they go beyond the issue of hunger, violence and misery in contexts of social exclusion, even if such issues are also discussed. Thus, to better reflect on the problem presented, the works of Spivak (2010), Dalcastagnè (2012) and Nascimento (2009) are mobilized to think about the implications of subalternity and marginal identities, as well as the discussions of Michel Foucault (2004, 2008) and bell hooks (2015) about the production of identities and the processes of subjectivation and objectification.