Genealogía y memoria afro-brasileña: representación y negritud en Dramas para negros e prólogo para brancos (1961) de Abdias do Nascimento

Abstract

In this article, we analyze the prologue to the theatrical anthology Dramas para negros e prólogo para brancos (1961), by Abdias do Nascimento, as a key text in Afro-Brazilian literature and cultural criticism. We argue that this writing functions as a critical intervention that constructs a transatlantic genealogy of Black theatre by articulating Africa, the diaspora, and Western tradition, while inscribing Afro-Brazilian experience within a collective historical memory in dialogue with the history of enslavement in Brazil. From a historical-cultural perspective grounded in textual analysis, we examine the discursive strategies deployed by the author in dialogue with Maria Soares, Kamau Brathwaite, Aimé Césaire, and Roger Chartier. We contend that the prologue redefines Negritude as critical historical consciousness and as an aesthetic-political project by questioning not only which works enter the canon, but also the criteria that determine what counts as legitimate literature and how Afro-descendant communities were historically represented in mid-twentieth-century Brazil. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the text frames and legitimizes the Teatro Experimental do Negro (TEN), founded by Nascimento himself, as a cultural and political project—not merely an artistic initiative, but a form of public action and intervention aimed at transforming the modes of Afro-Brazilian representation and recognition.