"The dead don't know how much a coffin costs": Afro realism in haitian literature

Abstract

The conception of the literary fact as a social fact (SAPIRO, 2016) legitimized sociological research together with works of literature, mainly for the reason that the literary form operates as an aesthetic expression of material life. In the light of historical and dialectical materialism, this article challenges the concept of zumbification developed in memorable works of Haitian literature, such as “Adriana em todos os meus sonhos” (DEPESTRE, 1996), “Pau de Sebo” (DEPESTRE, 1983) and “País sem Chapéu” ( LAFERRIÈRE, 2011). Such conceptual notion expresses particularities of the literary realism inherent to Haitian writers who, between the cracks of the literate city (RAMA, 2015), affirmed voodoo and orality as phenomena that organize the sociability of the Caribbean country. In this way, we resort to the idea of ​​afrorrealism (DUNCAN, 2006), with regard to the aesthetic debate of the selected texts, and to the concept of capitalist realism (FISHER, 2020), to formulate a critical reflection on the contributions of Haitian authored literature, in general, and the notion of zumbification, in particular, together with the sociology studies of literature.