In search of who is lost: Unpublished short stories by Ricardo Guilherme Dicke

Abstract

Admired by writers such as João Guimarães Rosa and Hilda Hilst – who declared his text to be more beautiful than that of the author of Grande Sertão: Veredas – and recognized by some of the most important Brazilian literary awards, Ricardo Guilherme Dicke is still very little studied. Until today, only two doctoral theses – one at the Federal University of Minas Gerais and another at the Federal University of Goiás – have focused on the works of this author, who died in 2008, as their object of study. Author of eleven works published during his lifetime, plus a further four work released posthumously, Dicke left a considerable volume of unpublished texts – among them, short stories of high literary quality. However, this material is at risk of being lost. Through the presentation and analysis of a Dicke’s unpublished short story, Os Olhos (The Eyes), our goal is to allow the reader to discover an important chapter in the history of Brazilian literature, and to present to the reader a new analytical perspective that will focus on the construction of Dicke’s literature from an aesthetic position that is revealed in his relationship with the visual arts and with philosophy, contributing to the debate that seeks to unveil the relationships between literature and visual arts.