On Writing and presenting Papéis da prisão, by Luandino Vieira

Abstract

In 2015, a group of 17 notebooks that were kept by the writer Luandino Vieira during his prison years was published under the name Papéis da prisão, apontamentos, diário, correspondência (1962-1971).  The book can be read as a personal journal, but it also includes a variety of other materials: letters, drafts, images, records and documents. The result a multiple and heterogeneous work, that challenges the reader because of its size and complexities. In this article, we read this work proposing some guide lines that may help to approach Luandino´s opus. To that end, we use as reference works by Phillipe Lejeune (O pacto autobiográfico, 2014) and Jacques Derrida (Archive fever: a Freudian impression, 1995). Our purpose is to understand how Luandino erects literature as space of resistance and personal change that gives new meaning to his imprisonment experience.