Brazilian democracy among rats and vampires: Rereading Lygia Fagundes Telles

Abstract

The topicality of Lygia Fagundes Telles distinguishes itself throughout her literary production, given the approximations of her text with the political debate raised by the current context of the country. The issues present in the work of the writer from São Paulo gain clear contemporary contours in the imminent demolition of Brazilian democracy, threatened by the plots and the continuous coups warped by the national political elite. This article intends to couple the short-story “Seminário dos ratos”, published for the first time in 1977, with the narratives and images that plague our political experience of the present, reassembling the tradition of vampire stories, another figure that has strongly reappeared in this moment we live in.