A figuração degradante do intelectual na periferia do capitalismo

estudo comparativo de Essa gente, de Chico Buarque, e Disgrace, de J. M. Coetzee

Abstract

This paper is a comparative study of novels by the Brazilian Chico Buarque and the South African Coetzee: Essa Gente e Disgrace. It establishes some similarities regarding the configuration of the novelistic form in the two countries in question. It presents a bit of confluent reflection on the role of the intellectual in a peripheral capitalist context, as is the case of the geopolitical-cultural space of origin of both writers. And, finally, it examines the two works in question, basing itself on the dilemmas faced by the literate-thinker in a degraded condition in a convergent historical context: neo-fascist incidences, recursive violence and stubborn racism, in view of aesthetic and ideological conformations that give to see societies torn apart by underdevelopment, authoritarianism and neoliberalism, determining aspects of irreconcilable contemporaneity on both sides of the Atlantic.