Madame Margô and the pombagira literary fabulation in the tale Lupanar (2024) by Leila Tabosa

Abstract

In Lupanar (2024), Leila Tabosa introduces us to Madame Margô, a character who, in confronting social norms to survival, embodies: strength, sensuality and freedom, using her feminine resilience to confront the intersectional processes of gender and class which she is exposed to. Due to her biographical trajectory and personality, we seek to analyze her as a literary manifestation of Afro-Brazilian entities known as Pombagiras. Barros (2015) and Saraceni (2017) conceptualize them as ethereal beings of extreme cultural and religious relevance to people from traditional culture. Furthermore, these spirits are frequently associated with sexuality, freedom and transgression, challenging social norms and traditional gender roles and representing the primordial feminine force from the perspective of Afro-Brazilian religions. For our analysis, we explore the use of critical fabulation, a theory developed by Saidiya Hartman (2020), as the literary technique used by Tabosa to tell a fictional story of a character who can be considered the quintessential Pombagira. Critical Fabulation, therefore, emerges as the primary methodology for revealing narratives of women silenced by patriarchal hegemony. This method, transcending mere fiction, allows the author to approach the experiences of historically invisible subjects by using critical imagination giving voice to these insurgent experiences and knowledge. By celebrating Afro-Brazilian culture, women's literature and decolonial literature, this research aims to contribute to studies on critical fabulation, religiosity, and intersectionality, as well as female ancestries that for not surrendered to social molds, transgress, through literature, colonial power structures.