O espaço urbano em Carolina Maria de Jesus: o eterno retorno ao Quarto de despejo e a casa de alvenaria

Abstract

Literature allows us to look at the world through the eyes of others. It dazzles us, but above all, it is an important political tool. Written in the fifties and sixties, the literary works of Carolina Maria de Jesus – who was a poor, black woman, and whose formal studies did not go beyond the second year of elementary school – are of fundamental relevance for understanding something that still occurs to this day: the marginalization of the poorest segments of the population. In her diaries, published partially in her book Quarto de Despejo: diário de uma favelada, the writer describes the hardships of the daily life in the old favela (slums) of Canindé, in the capital São Paulo. Through these records, it is possible to understand the perverse aspects of São Paulo’s urbanization model which was, in turn, inspired by the 19th century European hygienist reforms. The author’s story continues in her second journal titled Casa de Alvenaria: diario de uma ex-favelada, an account of Jesus leaving the favelas and her new life in the city. With that in mind, we seek to understand how the urbanization process and its consequences are represented in her works. We have consulted academic experts on Geography and Urbanism, such as David Harvey, Milton Santos, Ermínia Maricato and Raquel Rolnik. Jesus’ biographies are also explored, since the books that were analyzed have originated from her own journals. In a similar way, we also wish to understand the relationship between literature, memory, and reality from the perspective of academics such as Philipped Lejeune and Henri Bergson. Finally, we conducted a brief study on how Jesus’ subaltern life impacted the the reception of her works, and how, through concise considerations, the editor’s role influenced it. As a result, we verified that Carolina Maria de Jesus’ books are representative of an exclusive urbanization process that perpetuates itself through practical and, mainly, ideological mechanisms.