Abstract
, This paper explores a conception of justice through a reading of the Brazilian novel The Devil to Pay in the Backlands, written by João Guimarães Rosa. In this novel, the character of Zé Bebelo is tried by a group of jagunços, who were nomadic bandits that lived in the northeast of Brazil. What is analyzed in this scene is the spectral dimension of undecidability that involves a decision, and how a decision intervenes in a field of forces and reshapes the relationships and antagonisms of a conflict. I seek to show how this novel operates a counter-actualization of Brazilian history by updating and spotlighting the memory of violence and war that marks life in the peripheral regions of Brazil. Finally, I question how justice can be possible when war is a tendency internal to the functioning of societies. What concept of justice is possible when faced with this continuous tendency to disjoint the social body? I propose a concept of justice thought before the unbalanced, conflictive and differential relationships lived by the characters of this novel in the uncertain and contingent space of the Brazilian backlands.
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