Between Utopia and Colonization: Critical Imagination in Carta das Ilhas Andarilhas
This essay proposes a reading of Carta das Ilhas Andarilhas (1952), by Jacques Prévert and André François, grounded in the tension between utopia and colonization that structures its narrative. Published in the context of the geopolitical reconfiguration of postwar Europe and the rise of independence movements, the work constructs an imaginary space inscribed within the same horizon as the continental world, yet organized according to a different social logic. By suspending mercantile relations, the value-form, and the principle of accumulation, the narrative establishes a critical distance that renders visible the mechanisms of economic exploitation and the commodification of nature. Through humor, fabulation, and the juxtaposition of word and image, the work exposes the violence embedded in colonial expansion and reconfigures utopia not as a normative social model, but as a narrative procedure of historical critique.