Space, City and Post colonialism in the Poetic Discourse of the “Independent Writers of Pernambuco”

In Altas literaturas (High Literatures), Leyla Perrone Moisés reminds us that in the scope of Catholicism the canon acquired the meaning of a "list of saints recognized by the papal authority" which "by extension came to mean the set of literary authors recognized as masters of tradition" (1988, p. 61) .That, undoubtedly, guided the literary studies in Brazil until very recently. These studies ignored non-canonical literary works. In other words, the canonical thinking was oblivious to a rich literary production which was not in accordance with a colonialist view of the academic studies developed in our universities. In this work, we intend to study the literary production of some poets in Recife (Brazil), in the 1980s in relation to the established canon. We focus on the Movement, known as “Independent Writers of Pernambuco” aiming to bring to light a literary movement forgotten by Brazilian academic community.. Our study has a postcolonial perspectives we explore the need to pay attention to literary production by writers who do not always belong to “traditional canon” (Said, 2004). The poetical works of the movement we study may play a vital role in the context of Brazil and Pernambuco. By considering the emerging social responsibilities of writers and intellectuals in an ever more interdependent world, we suggest that studying the movement and its authors who are not much explored by Brazilian scholars we may be decolonizing the knowledge on literature in Brazil. Wetake into account the movement´s relations with Brazilian Northeastern culture and its program of action, dating from 1981, the beginning of the so-called "Lost Decade." The movement had an important voice against the most conservative and traditionalist criticism at that time. We believe that by studying the movement we are offering the opportunity to rethink our Brazilian and Pernambucan literary canon.