A language experience in O Irmão Alemão, by Chico Buarque

Abstract

The novel The German Brother, by Chico Buarque, starts from a primary source (letter), found by one of the characters, which moves the development of the narrative and highlights the uniqueness of primary sources for contemporary History and Literary Theory. Published in 2014, the novel highlights a global scenario, with fragmented territorial borders, structured between the tensions of what is real/historical – intertwined in a fertile web of imagination – establishing a fictional field. Therefore, this study aimed to propose a semiotic reading of the novel, emphasizing experience as a cognitive aspect of language whose materiality makes it possible to visualize the subjective of human relations, and the conflicts of the globalized, transnationalized territory. He followed the qualitative research method, performing a reading of some of his excerpts, focusing on the textual surface, that is, on language, based on Benveniste (1989) and Lacan (1982; 1998) among others; as well as Aira (1993), which made it possible to understand the fictional element as an aid to thought, and exoticism in its critical and positive aspect. To this end, Schøllhammer (2021) promoted the understanding of exoticism as a literary element of language. Santos (1998) and Bhabha (1998) helped in the reflection on the transnationalized space/territory and discursive instance. Thus, he found, in The German Brother, a narrative sustained by the historical bias of a primary source, although the reader finds semiotic stimuli to transit through the boundaries of the real and the imagination, where the fictional is established illuminating fragmented Brazilian-German spaces, which reflect a globalized context in which Nazi and dictatorial ideologies echo in the materiality of language.