Recovery and post-recovery: Women writers of Brazil’s literary past

Abstract

The scholarly endeavor to recover women writers of the past has been underway in Brazil particularly since the 1980s. A central reference in this trajectory is the Anthology of Brazilian Women Writers of the Nineteenth Century, published in three volumes (1999, 2004, and 2009). Organized by Zahidé Muzart, the anthology was produced with the collaboration of several researchers responsible for the chapters dedicated to each writer. This text therefore aims to examine the historical use of the term “recovery” and to reflect on the unease surrounding its application in studies of Brazilian women writers of earlier periods, drawing on a form of linguistic revisionism. After decades devoted to the recovery of these authors, it is now necessary to advance beyond this foundational stage into what I call the “post-recovery” phase. Whereas one of the primary objectives in the past had been to identify and catalogue forgotten women writers and their works, the present moment demands the consolidation of this scholarship. The goal now is to ensure that these works consistently re-enter circulation, are actively read and studied, and are situated within the literary and historical contexts of their respective eras.