Ana Cristina’s Ecstasy

Angélica Freitas’s Poem “Ana C.” and the Question of Queer Influence

Abstract

This article takes Angélica Freitas’s poem “Ana C.” as an entry point for reconsidering the narrative of Ana Cristina Cesar’s life. Animated by Freitas’s questions, I go back to Cesar’s archive in search of traces of the poet’s queerness to propose that Ana C., both as a real person and as the character in Freitas’s poem, helps to create what José Esteban Muñoz has conceived of as queer futurity. Through the questions that Cesar herself posed in poems, translations, letters, and other archival material, I seek to establish a dialogue between her work, composed mainly during the 1970s and 1980s, and contemporary discussions on queerness, using Freitas, as suggested by Heloisa Teixeira, as a possible “link” between Ana C. and our times.