Reconfiguring minds: valuing blackness in Cristiane Sobral's short stories

Abstract

This article undertakes an analysis of four short stories by black Brazilian author Cristiane Sobral: “Cauterização” (2009) and three short stories published in the collection Pretos em contos – volume 2 (2021). Throughout the article, we cite portions of our 2019 interview with Sobral to illuminate her work and to present her as a model for processes of collaborative writing and action in the field of literature. In the stories, Sobral aims to promote a deeper appreciation of blackness in the minds of black and non-black readers, often through portrayals of internal and external crises the protagonists go through. These texts contain many attempts to reconfigure the minds of readers—to cultivate a black Brazilian consciousness in people of various racial identities. Sobral shows how this will benefit all of society, and not just black Brazilians. The article argues that, through her texts, Sobral intends to provoke in readers a crisis of conscience and identity capable of moving them to new understandings of themselves, of the world today, and of possible worlds. The article ends by commenting on the reception of Sobral's works and her importance in the current literary movement, in efforts to legitimize black women and black women writers in modern-day Brazil.