Plague Diary of Gonçalo M. Tavares: the (un)sustainable fragility of human being

Abstract

During confinement, Gonçalo M. Tavares published daily chronicles entitled Diário da peste in the newspaper Expresso. Following the maps of Voyage autour de ma chambre of Xavier de Maistre, and inspired by Daniel Dafoe, the author of Uma viagem à Índia underlines the false synonymy between the concepts: travel, tour, route, journey, excursion, itinerancy, crossing and walking. If sea travel took us to the other side of the world, this Diário da peste is an invitation to the metaphysical navigation of thought to get to the other side of ourselves, rethinking our relations and society. The pandemic deepened ontological, social, political dissidences, among others, we became hostes (enemies/foreigners), even of ourselves. We aim to analyze the genological dissidence of Gonçalo M. Tavares’ literary production and to present a reading of Diário da peste, scrutinizing the main topics and dissidences.