Review: The Comet by W.E.B. Du Bois and The End of the White Supremacy by Saidiya Hartman

Abstract

Back in those times in which the lynchings, rapes and murders of black bodies killed much more than the Spanish Flu pandemic (1918), Du Bois writes and publishes his work entitled The Comet (1920) that underlines the afro-pessimism. Du Bois’ work and the dialogue brought by Saidiya Hartman entitled The End of The White Supremacy (2020) were both translated into Portuguese by André Capilé and Cecília Floresta in 2021 (O cometa e O fim da supremacia branca) and published in a book from the Fósforo Publisher with a  graphic project from Alles Blau. Analyzing the complexity and the timelessness of Du Bois’ short story, Hartman affirms that a century later, during the pandemic and even out of it, black bodies still die in more quantities. In this way, this book and translation review aim to critically reflect racial and translation issues as well as Brazilian reality contextual ones.