CAN LAW CONTRIBUTE TO LITERATURE?

Abstract

The text aims to highlight the reciprocity that is intrinsic to the interdisciplinary nature of studies in Law and Literature, by demonstrating that, just as the dialogue with literary works and the theory of literature allows us to rethink Law, Law also produces influences in the field of literature, and such influxes also deserve to be the subject of investigation.

To this end, having as a backdrop the role of literature in the process of imaginary construction of the national identity, the research analyses representations of Brazilian indigenous produced in distinct periods – from the XVI century to the 1950s – by writers belonging to a Eurocentric cultural elite, and examines the legal framework that, after the promulgation of the 1988 Federal Constitution, favored literary production by indigenous authors.

With this path, we seek to explain that the advances promoted in the Brazilian legal system have produced significant effects on the production and circulation of indigenous literature, as well as on the recognition of its cultural value.