O manto da noite e o intrincado jogo de viver com espécies companheiras no Chthuluceno

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the novel O manto da noite by Carola Saavedra from ecocritical, decolonial, and multispecies perspectives. Grounded mainly in the reflections of Donna Haraway, Anna Tsing, Stacy Alaimo, and Amerindian perspectivism, the article investigates how the novel questions anthropocentrism and proposes new forms of coexistence between humans and nonhumans within the context of the Chthulucene. It seeks to demonstrate that Saavedra’s narrative breaks with traditional novelistic models by subverting categories such as time, space, character, and language. Furthermore, the work presents hybrid figures, such as Caliban – a character revisited from The Tempest – and fantastic creatures, such as the colossal octopus, which challenge the boundaries between science, myth, and imagination. Another central axis of the analysis is the critical reinterpretation of the colonization of Latin America. The novel associates colonial violence with historical massacres, the erasure of Indigenous populations, and contemporary social inequalities. The work also revisits the Indigenous notion of AbyaYala, reaffirming ancestral knowledge and cosmologies that understand nature as a living subject rather than a resource to be exploited. In this sense, the work presents itself as a reflection on memory, belonging, ancestry, and collective survival on a planet marked by environmental and colonial destruction.