Resonances of dictatorships in children’s and young adult literature: Lygia Bojunga in Brazil and Alice Vieira in Portugal

Abstract

To what constraints were children’s and young adult literature exposed during the dictatorial periods in Brazil and Portugal? What was allowed and what was prohibited? How are dictatorships and their actions portrayed in literary works for children and youngpeople in both countries? This article seeks some answers to these questions through a specific focus: the life and some of the works of the authors Lygia Bojunga and Alice Vieira. Both lived during the Brazilian and Portuguese dictatorships in their respective countries. Poverty, fear, censorship and political-ideological persecutions, typical of authoritarian systems, are present in several narratives by the authors who question certain fundamental pillars of the traditional morality of dictatorships such as the family, gender relations or the role of women. Specialists in children and youth’s literature emphasize the emergence of these two writers as a turning pointinthe history of this literary genrein Brazil and Portugal.In this paperwehighlight their particularcontribution to the genre. Moreover,we register andanalysein their workthelinks that can be establishedbetween past and present, History and fiction.