The Complications of Resistance in Márcio-André's Ensaios Radioativos

Abstract

in Ensaios radioativos (2008), Brazilian poet Márcio-André’s account of his 2007 visit to Chernobyl. I consider the book’s various displays of resistance in service of a poetics of radical surrender. In particular, I examine how the essays and the performances they document rely on a notion of global ecology in order to upend the longstanding binary opposition of center/periphery that weighs on Brazilian literature. For all its dependence on interconnectedness, however, the work does not accord smoothly with current ideas of environmentality (Morton) or ecocosmopolitanism (Heise), therefore complicating its acceptance as an ecopoetical text. Ultimately, while the project’s global focus suggests a resistance to brasilidade and national insularity, the ensaios are preoccupied above all with reinforcing the importance of national language and rewriting Brazilian avant-garde tradition.