Escravidão, trabalho e maternidade: a experiência de mulheres negras na obra Um defeito de cor (2006), de Ana Maria Gonçalves

Abstract

This monograph aims to analyze the work A defect de cor (2006), by Ana Maria Gonçalves. The novel, which tells the story of the protagonist Kehinde, is a fiction that makes reference to the story of Luiza Mahin, supposed mother of the abolitionist Luiz Gama. The research intends to analyze how the experiences of black women in nineteenth-century Brazil were portrayed in the fictional plot, especially with regard to work and black motherhood, since these are fundamental themes for thinking about gender differences in the period of slavery and are also themes extremely expensive to the book. In addition to the fact that the whole story revolves around different forms of work, from slave to free, permeating the internal divisions that each one has, the novel also gives centrality to the experiences of motherhood in slavery, since Kehinde passes the story looking for his free son, who had been sold into slavery by his father. The study also intends to understand the relationships established between the novel and the paratexts that make up the work, such as the list of bibliographic references at the end of the book.