Narrative as a subversion of the single story in Micheliny Verunschk's The sound of the jaguar's roar

Abstract

This article presents a critical reading of Micheliny Verunschk's novel The sound of the jaguar's roar (2022), identifying the record of violence perpetrated by European colonization against the subalternized Other through the writing of their history. With the interweaving of fiction and fragments of reality represented by historical records, Verunschk's narrative escapes the limits of autonomy to recount the official trajectory that stretches from the colonization of Brazil to the present day. The research argues that the author uses a resource to supplant two narrative levels. The first level relates to the main characters in the story, the indigenous girl Iñe-e and Josefa, an indigenous descent. The second level is the narration of the story of these characters, which, having been written by the German scientific explorers Von Spix and Von Martius from a colonial perspective is subverted by the narrator who lends his voice and language to a colonized other, breaking with the single story that is commonly perpetuated. The theoretical basis is provided by, among others, Ludmer (2013), Federici (2017, 2019) Adichie (2009), Lugones (2014), Mundukuru (2017), Pedrosa et al (2018).