Luso-Brazilian figures of childhood in the twentieth century: Dalcídio Jurandir and Soeiro Gomes

Abstract

The dialogue between Portuguese and Brazilian literature has always existed, from colonial times to contemporary times, although the influxes of Portuguese literature on Brazilian literary history have always been more evident. In the twentieth century, however, a kind of counterflow manifests itself, including the circulation of narratives by Brazilian authors, linked to the so-called novel of 30, among Portuguese writers and intellectuals, a fact that for some critics was paradigmatic for the writing of novels which gave rise to the Portuguese neorealism. This seems to be the case of Esteiros, by the Portuguese author Soeiro Pereira Gomes, published in 1941, curiously, the same year of the publication of Chove nos Campos de Cachoeira (1941), by Dalcídio Jurandir, Brazilian writer, whose work also aligns with those of the good novelists of 30 (FURTADO, 2015, p.14). Considering this context, I propose to approach these two literary experiences in Portuguese published in the same year, in different countries, both by communist militant writers who produced their fictional writings aesthetically aligned with the commitment to social denunciation and the representation of minorities, focusing the theme of childhood in the first half of the twentieth century.