TESTIMONIAL LITERATURE AGAINST THE GRAIN OF HISTORY: PEASANT MEMORY IN GRACILIANO RAMOS'S VIDAS SECAS

Abstract

This study analyzes the representation of the peasantry in Vidas Secas, examining how the characters’ memories and testimonies configure a narrative that challenges bourgeois and progressive historiography. It is grounded in the understanding that official history is constituted through hegemonic narratives that relegate certain groups to oblivion or marginalization, producing distorted and stereotyped representations within the social imaginary, disseminated through the media, textbooks, and dominant literary traditions. In opposition to this logic, Testimonial Literature emerges as an aesthetic practice committed to inscribing subaltern voices within historical memory. The theoretical framework articulates philosophy and testimonial literature based on the reflections of Walter Benjamin (1892–1940), taking On the Concept of History as a central reference, along with studies dedicated to the theme. Methodologically, this qualitative research adopts a bibliographical approach guided by the hermeneutic method. It argues that Vidas Secas presents characteristics of Testimonial Literature by constructing a social representation of the peasantry that reinscribes the experience of the defeated into the field of memory and disrupts the linearity of dominant historical narratives.