The historical novels of Manuel Zapata Olivella and Ana Maria Gonçalves map black journeys from Africa to the Americas in a way that challenges the Black Atlantic paradigm that has become synonymous with cosmopolitan African diaspora studies. Unlike Paul Gilroy, who coined the term and based it on W.E.B. DuBois’s double consciousness, Zapata, in Changó el gran putas (1983), creates an empowering mythology that reframes black resistance in Colombia, Haiti, Mexico, Brazil, and the United States. In Um defeito de cor (2006), Gonçalves imagines the survival strategies of a legendary woman said to be the mother of black abolitionist poet Luís Gama and a conspirator in an African Muslim–led revolt in Brazil’s “Black Rome.” These novels show differing visions of revolution, black community, femininity, sexuality, and captivity. They skillfully reveal how events preceding the UNESCO Decade of Afro-Descent (2015–2024) alter our understanding of Afro-Latin America as it gains increased visibility.
Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.
Introduction: This Book, Manuel Zapata Olivella, and Ana Maria Gonçalves
a Manuel Zapata Olivella (1920–2004)
b Zapataolivellismo
i The U.S. Context
ii The Latin American Context
c Ana Maria Gonçalves (b.1970)
d The Bourgeoning Criticism on Ana Maria Gonçalves
e Changó and Defeito: Summaries
i Changó el gran putas (1983)
ii Um defeito de cor (2006)
1 Myth, Literature, and History in Zapata
a Muntu, Nuevo Muntu, and Changó’s Curse
i Influences
ii Placide Tempels and the Muntu
iii The Curse
b The Origin Myth of Benkos Bioho
2 Afro-Brazil in Defeito and Changó
a Luís Gama: History, Myth, and Literature
b Luísa Mahin: From Poetry to History
c Quilombos in Changó
i Aleijadinho and Zumbi
d Quilombos and Terreiros of Defeito
i Gender and Myth in Dahomey
e Conclusion
3 Double Consciousness and Nation in Gilroy and Zapata
a The Black Atlantic and the Nuevo Muntu
i The Black Atlantic: Summary
ii After The Black Atlantic
iii Representative Critics of Gilroy in the Anglophone Tradition
b Du Bois in Changó
i Zapata’s Du Bois
ii Double Consciousness
iii Music, Orality, and the Sea
iv The African Diaspora is part of a New World History beyond the Nation
c. Zapata, Precursor of Today’s Latin Americanist Critics of Gilroy
4 Women, Gender, and the Nuevo Muntu
a The Black Atlantic from an Afro-Brasileira’s Point of View
i. Domingos Álvares and the Black Atlantic Kingdom of Dahomey
ii. Gonçalves and Antônio Olinto’s Black Atlantic
iii. Luís Gama’s Brazil in the Black Atlantic
b Rape in the Novels of Zapata and Gonçalves
i. Sons of God and the She-Devil
ii. Mother Africa
iii. Gonçalves’s Raw Realism of Rape
c Changó / Santa Bárbara and Queer Characters
d Agne Brown and the Apocalypse
Conclusion: The Nuevo Muntu Today and Tomorrow
a El Putas, U.S.A.
b Nuevo Muntu History and Gonçalves’s Journalism
c Afrofuturism
i Brazil
ii Latinx-futurism
iii Ana Maria Gonçalves
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
