"Homelandless Boys"

dictatorship, literature and the works of memory between fiction and reality (1981/2018)

Abstract

Under the prevailing perspective of Elizabeth Jelin’s “works of memory” concept, in dialogue
with Pierre Nora’s “memory places” and raising questions about the relevance or not of Maurice
Halbwachs’ “collective memory” category, the article problematizes the challenges of analyzing
and understanding a recent episode involving the children’s book “Meninos sem Pátria”, by Luiz
Puntel, whose work was accused, in 2018, by parents of students from a traditional school in
Rio de Janeiro, of making an apology for communism and trying to indoctrinate children. In this sense, our main objective is to critically analyze the content of the work - as source and object - both in the field of fiction literature, testimony and its relationship with memories and history. As a result, the recurrent presence of “vehicles of memory” can be seen in the aforementioned narrative, and it is questioned whether the ideological protests against the book were anchored in any critical analysis.