A política da morte na ficção distópica de Ignácio Loyola Brandão

Abstract

Dystopian fiction in contemporary times has been consolidated in the literary universe as one of the most popular strands of the novel for its capacity to object to the project of destruction of critical thinking and to function as a kind of warning in relation to the dangers that beset humanity. In the specific case of Brazilian literature, this type of narrative takes on specific dictions, especially with regard to the hybridization between fact and fiction. In this sense, this dissertation will scrutinize the dystopian narratives of Brazilian author Ignácio Loyola Brandão, in particular, the novel Desta terra nada vai sobrar, a não ser o vento que sopra sobre ela (2019), in an attempt to identify whether there is any relationship between his dystopian writing and the "politics of death" advocated by Achille Mbembe (2011) in his work Necropolitics. In it, the philosopher presents a reading of politics as a field of war where those who have sovereignty hold the power to define who matters and who does not matter to live. In this sense, it is observed that Loyola Brandão has produced, in the last decades, novels that bring in their core, the specter of disorder, injustice, corruption and barbarism, dispensing, in a metaphorical way, strong criticism to organizational and governmental structures that potentiate systems of government that, even indirectly, are totalitarian. By addressing social, cultural, economic and political issues, the novelist remembers in his works moments of tension and oppression faced by the country, mainly, since the dictatorial period until today. In our view, he assumes a kind of "mission", by using his dystopian literary creation to criticize the behavior of the institutions of power that, by means of devices, watch over, usurp, violate and oppress the most vulnerable population. This characteristic of the author is in line with the thought of Leyla Perrone-Moisés (2016), who, in her book Mutations of Literature in the 21st Century, states that "the best literature of our time is critical" (p. 257). As a theoretical foundation, we will rely on the studies of Judith Butler (2020), Hannah Arendt (2012), Michel Foucault (2021) , Achille Mbembe (2011), among others.