Refuge, exile and hospitality in Agora vai ser assim, by Leonardo Tonus and Teoria da Fronteira by José Tolentino Mendonça

Abstract

The refusal of resigned acceptance of the current (in)human condition seems to generate the poetic act in parts of Leonardo Tonus and José Tolentino Mendonça's creative output. The issue of refuge and the human ethical gesture of hospitality are themes that permeate the works Agora vai ser assim (2018) and Teoeora da Fronteira (2017), published respectively in Brazil and Portugal. Both are influenced by the 2015 migrant crisis in Europe which, as Michel Agier says, is much more than a crisis of the European states in the face of immigrants. It is about a crisis of representation of the other. In a similar way, Tonus and Mendonça propose a way out of the disquiet of this time, when a chilling xenophobia claims status as rationality in contemporary practices and policies. A time too when an exile elicits no reparation and instead faces the prolonged trauma of political suffering in an imposed condition that is uncertain, precarious. Based on the studies of Alexis Nouss, Michel Agier and others, we intend to explore a number of poetic images in order to reflect on the experience of the refugee in contemporary times.