Time and history in Torto arado: a reading through the theses “On the Concept of History” by Walter Benjamin

Abstract

This article aims operate a Benjaminian interpretation of the novel Torto arado, written by Itamar Vieira Júnior in 2018, through the conceptions of time and history of the German thinker formulated in his theses “On the Concept of History” (2005). Itamar Vieira Júnior's narrative dramatizes the history of Brazil, specifically its slaveholding past, from the perspective of the vanquished, in a movement of historical reflection against the official and triumphant narratives. In Torto arado (2018), the historical and temporal structures related to the past and the present coexist and are juxtaposed, an element of fictional creation in line with the reflections of Walter Benjamin. Thus, the novel studied destabilizes the traditional notions of succession of time and historical progress by creating a narrative that takes place in current times, but that establishes links with our slaveholding past, evidencing the permanence of its operators of exploitation and its intrinsic violence.