Graciliano Ramos: histórias de uma vida, uma vida de histórias

Abstract

Graciliano Ramos was an extremely careful writer with regard to form and rewrote his books incessantly, only publishing them when they were free of any excesses. His literary texts bring not only the “dry”, accurate and precise style of the author from Alagoas, but also represent the Brazilian socio-historical context of the first half of the 20th century. In general, literary criticism points to the tenuous borderline that divides, in a way, Graciliano's work into autobiographical/memorialist and fictional narratives. Certainly, these borders must be taken into account when analyzing the author's work as a whole, but what must also be considered is the common trait that brings all narratives together, whether fictional or autobiographical/memorial, such as, for example, the theme of violence and its various forms of manifestation present in most of his literary texts. It is also important to highlight that, based on the literary reworking of his own experience, Graciliano, moved by memory, sought to reflect on the individual's relationship with Power and the hardships of the Law, whether paternal or social, portraying the forms of sociability and the modes of subjectivation proper to a historical context marked by violence and oppression. Therefore, this article's main objective is to present, based on bibliographical research, a brief revised biography of Graciliano Ramos, highlighting episodes of his life that represent the main force of writing of one of the main authors from Brazilian Modernism.