Brazilian indian literature: between tradition, criticism and resistance

Abstract

This paper explores the Brazilian Indian literature produced since the1990s. This is seen as an aesthetical-political perspective which intertwines ancestral tradition with and as critic of the present, cultural resistance and political struggle, profoundly allying to the Brazilian Indian Movement that appeared in the end of the 1970s, and, actually, becoming its instrument for normative legitimation. Indian literature is understood as political standing and pedagogical praxis of the Indians by and from themselves, directed to the politicization of Indian issues emerging from a profound dialogue with the civil society about our social-cultural and institutional constitution. Therefore, it is argued that the reading key for Indian Literature should be its connection to the Indian Movement, its radical politicization, and its use of tradition as critics of the present as methodological tools for the access to it and mainly not to forget its deep political and politicizing sense and orientation.