Rachel de Queiroz´s chronicles and the “City of Goiás” [Brazil]: a familiar foreign view

Abstract

This paper investigates the urban imaginary created by the writer Rachel de Queiroz about the Town of Goiás, observed through some of her journalistic chronicles that contemplate this theme, published between 1948 and 1988. It is proposed to study her familiar and insightful look at the city, although external, originated in the fact that this is the birthplace of her second husband, Oyama de Macedo. For this, Cultural History is used as a theoretical and methodological support, exploring the complex relationships between history and fiction and addressing the concept of urban imagery, from the speeches and images linked to Goiás reflected by the author. In this context, the perspectives of theorists such as Michel de Certeau, Paul Ricoeur, Roger Chartier, Sandra Pesavento, etc. are analyzed. This basis aims to justify the use of literature as a historical source, also supported by a brief biographical investigation about the author, in order to allow for a better contextualization of her writings. It is also noteworthy that the absence of research with this thematic and theoretical focus, articulating the work of Queiroz and the Town of Goiás, aroused interest in this investigative field, above all, by enabling the reach of differentiated approaches. Finally, it appears that the Vilaboense imaginary constructed by the author is quite coherent and complementary to that verified in the existing bibliography, consolidating it. In it, local conflicts between past and present are repeatedly observed, the cultural and natural wealth of its heritage and its inhabitants, the effects of the secular geographic isolation of the region, the traumas left by the transfer of the capital in the 1930s, the bandeirante Anhanguera as original myth, among other themes.