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Abstract
This study discusses the representation of childhood in two neo-regionalist novels in Brazilian literature: O Quinze (1930) and Vidas Secas (1938). It explores the contributing factors that helped to redefine the modernist movement of the 1920s, demonstrates the political and social view of the Northeast writers, and a biographical sketch of Rachel de Queiroz and Graciliano Ramos. The analysis reveals how Queiroz and Ramos portray the differences between upper and working-class understandings of childhood and their connection with social, political and economic systems. This study also aims to show how childhood is represented as an absence of well-being do to the experience of drought and the normalization of death or as a demand for hope, care, and the expectation of a better life. Finally, the conclusion illustrates how the authors intentionally used neorealist techniques to present an image of the Northeast that promotes social awareness, governmental support, and in Ramos book, social resistance.