CINCO CONTEMPORÂNEAS ANGLÓFONAS DE CAROLINA MARIA DE JESUS

Abstract

This article seeks to establish an English-language context for a comparative reading of Quarto de despejo (1960), by Carolina Maria de Jesus (1914-1977), published in 1962 in New York under the title Child of the Dark, and in London as Beyond All Pity. Roberta Flores Pedroso describes de Jesus as a “poor, semi-schooled Black migrant woman” who became a publishing phenomenon. This article presents five Black women authors, writing in English, born between 1904 and 1924 in countries beyond the centers of power in the North Atlantic, and discusses the ways in which the terms poor, semi-schooled, migrant and publishing phenomenon need to be relativized in order to make the comparison. The authors discussed are Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920-1993) and Faith Bandler (1918-2015), from Australia; Ellen Kuzwayo (1914-2006), from South Africa, and Una Marson (1905-1965) and Louise Bennett (1919-2006), from Jamaica.