Contra a Corrente by Graça Alves and 20 de Fevereiro by Octávio Passos: Imaginaries of a Catastrophe Amidst the Real Rubble

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to observe literary and visual representations of a landscape that was unsettled by the storm that hit Madeira Island on 20^th February, 2010. The short story book Contra a Corrente (‘Against the Current’), by Graça Alves, published in 2011, and the photo album 20 de Fevereiro, by Octávio Passos, issued in 2012, not only bear witness to the fury of the waters, but also shed a distinctive light on that natural disaster. The narratives they recount interpret the human experience of a sudden dystopic present. However, it is that very same human presence that transmits signs of hope. These moving and entrancing discourses, though marked by fiction and singular perspectives, are seen both as a resilient response to the ensuing chaos and as a means to elude the possibility of oblivion. The evocative force of the events experienced or witnessed, either imaginatively narrated or shown through the lens of a camera, will preserve the encounters, evasions and reunions that the catastrophe originated. We propose a cross-reading of the two books, in which we will question the existing implications between individual representation and cultural memory that may contribute to the construction of an integrative imaginary of this event for the benefit of future generations.

Keywords

Natural Disaster; Cultural Memory; Literary and Visual Representation; Cross-Reading, Madeiran Culture.