History, memory, and politics in Pessach

This paper analyzes the novel Pessach: a travessia, by Rio de Janeiro writer and journalist Carlos Heitor Cony, published in 1967, with the aim of showing how this work: dialogues with the historical moment contemporary to its publication; consolidates itself as a realistic political novel, characterized by a reaction to the repression and censorship in force in the early years when the country lived under military rule; fits into the tradition of literary engagement, with a character of denunciation and resistance, presenting political and ideological implications with the concrete reality of the time. Considering that literary production after the military coup, especially that linked to memoir writing, is a fertile field for revisiting and rethinking various national issues of a historical, ideological, and political nature, the relevance of this work consists in highlighting the extent to which Pessach: a travessia allows us to review and reflect on the turbulent events experienced in the years after 1964 through fiction, a fact that becomes more accurate and impartial due to the present temporal distance from the publication of the novel.