abstract
This article examines how literary texts written by authors from Brazil's urban peripheries, specifically the work of Ademiro Alves, also known as Sacolinha, claim the human rights of residents from the periphery. In so doing, these works also demand their inclusion into the polis. Peripheral literary texts voice these demands by depicting both daily life and social injustice in Brazil's urban peripheries. Through this joint portrayal, which occurs concurrently in the works this essay discusses, Sacolinha signals the adverse socioeconomic conditions in which many peripheral subjects live. At the same time, his representation also valorizes peripheral communities and cultural production. Sacolinha's texts thus suggest that residents of Brazil's urban peripheries are not only the victims of human rights violations, but also that they have right to have rights (Arendt 1951).
Keywords:
Sacolinha; human rights; social injustice