2023-11-16 18:15:00
In the list of ten books required for the Fuvest higher education entrance exam in 1989, the first time this was required at the University of São Paulo, there were only male authors. All were white, except one: Machado de Assis, with “Memorias Póstumas de Brás Cubas.” In the list announced for the 2026 exam, the institution requires nine books and a majority by black writers. But there is only one woman: Ruth Guimarães and her “Água Funda”, which will be mandatory for the 2025 candidates.
Gustavo Monaco, a law professor who assumed the executive direction of Fuvest at the beginning of the year, sees this as “a huge problem.” “Ideally, the candidates, who are more than half of those registered for the exam, could recognize themselves on the book list.” This criterion, he affirms, will be one of those that will guide future lists.
“There is the notion that men constituted Brazilian literature, but we see that there are previous female authors who were forgotten. The university has the role of showing the community their research, and ours showed that these women were erased due to gender issues, not because of a lack of quality,” explains Márcia Ivana de Lima e Silva, head of the Institute of Letters at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.
The symbolist poet Cruz e Sousa, who is black, usually appears on the list of the federal institution of his State, Santa Catarina. It was in the center of Santa Catarina, by the way, where a black woman appeared for the first time as required reading: Conceição Evaristo with “Olhos d’Água”, in 2017. Ruth Guimarães will become, next year, the first black woman required by the USP.
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