The historical fiction of Eliana Alves Cruz: necropower, violence, coloniality of the body, and infectious diseases

Abstract

In this article, we aim to analyze the representations of necropower, violence, coloniality of the body, and infectious diseases (such as cholera, yellow fever, smallpox and maculo), recurrent in the process of enslavement of black people. We will investigate such themes by studying the historical fiction novels Água de barrela (2018), Crime do cais do Valongo (2018a), and Nada digo de ti, que em ti não Veja (2020), written by Eliana Alves Cruz. Therefore, starting from the discussions on the various forms of coloniality, violence, and barbarism evidenced in theorists such as Agamben (2002), Bento (2018), Césaire (2020), Dalcastagnè (2008), Lugones (2019), among others, we will observe the ways in which capitalism, European colonization and modern slavery, using necropolitics, led subalternized bodies to death through normalization and regulation, by denying to these bodies basic conditions of existence, such as food, hygiene, decent work, healthcare and rest. By the end of the research, we discovered that the novels problematize and denounce the colonial wound that slavery inflicted on black people, placing them in inhumane situations both of displacement, and in the environments of exploitation.

Keywords

• historical fiction
• necropower
• violence
• coloniality of the body
• infectious diseases