Being, existing, and narrating the world: existential and symbolic dimensions in Valter Hugo Mãe

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17058/rzm.v15i1.21114

Keywords:

Literature; , Existence, Affection;, Otherness;, Poetics.

Abstract

This article analyzes the existential and symbolic dimensions of Valter Hugo Mãe's work based on the novels As mais belas coisas do mundo (2019) and O paraíso são os outros (2014), in which childhood occupies a central place as a way of understanding the world. In both texts, the child's voice, marked by poetic simplicity and affective intensity, observes reality with wonder and lucidity, converting everyday experience into reflection on being, love, and coexistence. In the first novel, learning is constructed through affection, beauty, and the experience of death; in the second, love and otherness underpin an ethics of shared happiness. Childhood thus emerges as an epistemological and philosophical key, capable of narrating the world in its complexity from a lucid innocence. The analysis develops along four axes: childhood and initiation into being; pedagogy of affection; death and love as symbolic passages; and beauty and otherness as ethical and aesthetic principles.

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Author Biography

  • Rodrigo Felipe Veloso, Unimontes

    Pós-doutor em Letras: Estudos Literários pela UFMG; Doutor em Letras: Estudos Literários pela UFJF; Docente no  Departamento de Comunicação e Letras da Unimontes. Membro permanente do Grupo Interdisciplinar de Estudos Literários Lusófonos (GIELLUS - UEPB), no Núcleo de Estudos Judaícos (NEJ-UFMG), sobre a diáspora e memória na literatura de escritoras judias no Brasil (UNIMONTES) e no projeto de extensão Resgatando a dignidade e a liberdade por meio da leitura (UNIMONTES). rodrigof_veloso@yahoo.com.br. Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7840-584X. 

Published

2026-07-02

How to Cite

Veloso, R. F. (2026). Being, existing, and narrating the world: existential and symbolic dimensions in Valter Hugo Mãe. Rizoma, 15(1), 121-136. https://doi.org/10.17058/rzm.v15i1.21114