The uncanny as a literary strategy in narratives of femicide

Abstract

This article investigates the narrative of the uncanny (insólito)  as an aesthetic, epistemological, and political strategy in four literary works: three that reimagine real cases of feminicide — Aracelli, meu amor (1976), by José Louzeiro; Garotas mortas (2018), by Selva Almada; Um crime bárbaro (2022), by Ieda Magri — and one fictional work that addresses similar crimes: Sinfonia em branco (2001), by Adriana Lisboa. The study proposes a cartography of the uncanny, examining how it manifests differently in each narrative according to their formal and symbolic contours. The uncanny operates as a tool for fictionalizing trauma, creating zones of instability that disrupt traditional reading contracts and conventions of crime fiction. The analysis draws on García (2012), Roas (2014), Covizzi (1978), and Prada Oropeza (2006). Whether through the voice of a psychic, a childhood monster, a mythical figure, or the narrator’s dreams, the uncanny calls the reader to an ethical form of listening to what resists representation.