Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: VALESKA MARIA FERREIRA DA SILVA

The work Recife Sangrento and its four editions: politics, brabos and crime literature (1937-1970)

Oscar Melo – Recife Sangrento – Crime Literature - Cultural History

This dissertation aims to analyze the four editions of the book Recife Sangrento by crime reporter Oscar Felix de Melo, which appeared between 1937 and 1970. Oscar Melo's work is part of a very specific genre widely known by historians as crime literature. As its name implies, this genre is characterized by its emphasis on criminal narratives, often based on supposedly true cases. The data found on the author's life, although not as abundant as we would have liked, was enough to show how the author considerably modified his work from the second edition (1938), through the third (1956), to the final and definitive version of 1970. We mean that both the setbacks of his life, such as advancing age and with it his own distance from the successes narrated, and the intense historical transformations that took place in Brazil in general and in Pernambuco in particular between the first and last editions, are perceptible in the thematic choices and subjects dealt with, especially in relation to what was preserved or completely suppressed, precisely between one edition and the next. If Melo didn't have many readers, at least he seems to have had many buyers, but there seems to be no doubt that his work contributed to reinforcing certain social and political imaginaries about Recife at the end of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th.