The struggle for land in Famine and Crooked Plow: Oppression and resistance in (post)colonial contexts

Abstract

This article examines how land functions as both a site of oppression and resistance in British-ruled Ireland and postcolonial Brazil. Through a comparative analysis of Famine (1937) by Liam O’Flaherty and Crooked Plow (2019, translated 2023) by Itamar Vieira Júnior, this study explores how land dispossession, labor exploitation, and environmental and humanitarian crises shape colonial and postcolonial experiences. While acknowledging the historical and racial differences between these contexts, the article highlights shared mechanisms of control over land and labor that perpetuate systemic inequalities. By engaging with postcolonial and decolonial thought, the analysis reveals how literature represents land as both a space of suffering and a site of resistance, memory, and identity. The article concludes that resistance in both novels is multilayered, emerging through acts of defiance, cultural struggle, and reimagined relationships with the land.