AGONTIMÉ AND HER LEGEND: QUEEN IN ÁFRICA, MOTHER OF SAINT IN MARANHÃO. A NOVEL ABOUT DAOMÉ AND THE HOUSE OF MINES IN MARANHÃO.

This article discusses how the novel Agontimé e sua Legend (1970, 1974), originally written in English, by Judith Gleason, and translated into Portuguese under the title Agontimé e sua Legend: Rainha na África, Mãe de Santo no Maranhão (2022), by Carlos Eugenio Marcondes de Moura, narrates the trajectory of Nã Agontimé, in the ancient kingdom of Abomey, Dahomey, before being enslaved by her stepson Adandozan and brought to Maranhão, where she founded Casa das Minas, exploring black feminism in 70s of the century XX, but above all, the relations between Maranhão and Dahomey and how the latter contributes to a type of cultural heritage of Maranhão based on religiosity, in particular, of the terreiros of Mina. In addition, the article explores how literature, while legibility, proposes a type of reading of historical subjects because it is an ethnographic novel, shedding light on how interpretive analyzes of the past are encapsulated by the art of fictional writing.