EVARISTO, Conceição. Macabéa, Mulungu Flower. Rio de Janeiro: Oficina Raquel, 2023. 40p

Abstract

This review of Macabéa, Flor de Mulungu, by Conceição Evaristo seeks to discuss the character Macabéa, previously described by Clarice Lispector in the novel The Hour of the Star and that, from then on, Evaristo takes on the new face of this iconic and representative protagonist of women oppressed by society. In this sense, the aim is to address themes such as the silencing of women in a social context, death as a metamorphosis of life and thinking about literature as a symbolic, rhizomatic and ritualistic text. In Macabéa, Flor de Mulungu, we can see a narrator who has a close alliance with the character, a link that goes back to strength, resilience and survival. The tale begins when Macabéa is run over, the final and striking scene of the Claricean novel and, above all, it portrays the metaphor of the mulungu flower that gives the text its title, before it blooms withered, dry, lifeless, however, it contains within itself the essence necessary for its germination. It is worth highlighting, therefore, the images by Luciana Nabuco that help to illustrate Evaristo's work, highlighting the beauty of the cover and the internal figures composed as allegories of resistance, that is, images of masks, faces and bodies of black women, images of geometric figures, of Afro-indigenous people and, finally, the mulungu flower with its black, green and red colors with its fruits and flowers that symbolically represent the “Béa” created by the writer and that rescues the identity of many women who find themselves even in life, asleep.