Espaços movediços e conflitantes na Manaus de Milton Hatoum

Abstract

The ruinous spatial practices that took place in Manaus during the military dictatorship haunt Milton Hatoum’s 2005 Cinzas do Norte. The novel’s physical setting ensnares us in a game of piecing together how the city is meaningful both to the imaginary narrative and beyond the bounds of the novel. We discover, in this process, a Manaus in continuous flux, which defies representation and bears the marks of power struggles and historical violence. Manaus’s belle époque architecture and the Cidade Flutuante are topoi that are significant to this game of spatial interpretation. The Cidade Flutuante is both a real neighborhood and a metaphor that suggests a vulnerable space, often eclipsed by the imposing heft of Manaus’s neoclassical belle époque structures.