LITERATURE AND ALTERITY: A EXPEDIÇÃO MONTAIGNE, BY ANTONIO CALLADO

Abstract

This essay analyzes the issue of travel in the novel A expedição Montaigne, by Antonio Callado, with the aim of showing the annulment of the indigenous in the clash with the white man, throughout the process of building the Brazilian nation, which did not include, in this project, the autochthonous peoples of Brazil. By putting as head of the expedition a white intellectual, of French origin, who wants to arm an army of Amazonian indigenous people against white colonialism, through the help of Ipavu, an indigenous person who has long been living in the urban center and totally degraded psychologically and culturally, the author, through caustic political satire, denounces the Brazil of the guerrillas of the 60s and 70s and portrays the abandonment, the sad reality and cultural decay of indigenous peoples, metaphorized in Ipavu, an indigenous who likes the world of whites, is an alcoholic and, therefore, he hates its people, denies its cultural values and, in no way, wants to return to its origins, as he identifies itself with the world of urban marginality.