HER MOTHER’S MOTHER’S MOTHER & HER DAUGHTERS

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HER MOTHER’S MOTHER’S MOTHER & HER DAUGHTERS, BY MARIA JOSÉ SILVEIRA, TRANSLATED BY ERIC M. B. BECKER

Maria José Silveira’s novel, Her Mother’s Mother’s Mother and Her Daughters, translated by Eric M. B. Becker, traces the matrilineal ancestry of a family throughout Brazil’s history. Beginning in 1500 with the arrival of Portuguese ships and a Tupiniquim woman named Inaiá, each woman’s life is detailed in full before the focus passes to her daughter, ending in 2001 with the most recent descendant, Maria Flor. Each woman’s story, though shadowed by the events that came before her, is illuminated by her own unique personality. These episodic narratives chronicle the changes to the customs in Brazilian culture, fads that come and go, as well as waves of political and social movements.

These women’s trials are woven with the history of Brazil, creating a powerful critique of patriarchy, racism, and authoritarianism. The indigenous woman Sahy, the first of several characters to be enslaved by the Portuguese, is an interpreter of dreams, a woman who feels deeply in touch with the natural world. After her capture, she becomes disassociated from her own life, “and soon reached a stage in which she was always beyond, the stage where she could accept and contemplate the world as a passive observer of the infinite human capacity to inflict suffering.” The author’s own personal trials are ingrained here, as well, for similar to the character Ligia, Silveira was accused of subversive activities by the military dictatorship and was exiled to Peru in the early seventies. Tragedy and joy unite to form holistic portraits—the women of Silveira’s novel may be constrained by the time periods they live in, but they are not the product of them.

Open Letter.

—Review by Rome Morgan