Narrar, viver: a legitimação do testemunho nas narrativas jornalística e literária

Abstract

This essay attempts to offer a reflection on journalistic narrative and testimonial literature from the perspective of social legitimacy. Therefore, we address the arduousness involved in processes of narrating and living. Here, we draw mainly fromTodorov’s(1969) ideas, from Primo Levi’s(2004) testimonials, and from news constructions based on the mainstream media’s ideological perspectives in the first half of the 21st century. We understand that with its recent trend of movingaway from its legitimized position of “inventing of stories”and moving towards the witnessing of "real facts," literature establishes parallels with the trajectory of journalism. Adopting the opposite point of view, journalism seems to be increasingly flirting with story inventors’mechanisms, devices, and literary techniques.