Formas e genealogias do mal em H.G. Cancela – ou a negação da felicidade humana

Abstract

In this text, we intend to analyse a novel by H.G. Cancela, The People of Drama (2017), a contemporary author rather ignored by literary criticism, despite the quality of his work. This recent novel lends itself to a very fruitful analysis, when viewed from the point of view of the forms of violence, hatred and evil that often guide interpersonal relationships. Whether or not there is ancestral guilt, evil and the corresponding relations of hatred and violence, under various masks (verbal, sexual, social, cultural) may occur socially in the most diverse and unexpected ways. In fact, this theme is very dear to the author’s writing and worldview, even in essayistic writing. In The People of Drama, we come across dramatic atmospheres and scenic interpretations, rather lonely and agonistic characters, true shadows of tragic heroes, living situations of pain and interdict, of loneliness and incommunicability, of perverse misogyny and misanthropy.