Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Only Imagine: Fiction, Interpretation, and Imagination, by Kathleen Stock

2018; Oxford University Press; Volume: 128; Issue: 510 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/mind/fzy057

1460-2113

Amy Kind,

Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies

Controversy swirled in 2016 when Noma Dumezweni, a black actress, was cast in the role of Hermione Granger in the London stage production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Though nowhere in the seven Harry Potter books was Hermione’s race or skin colour ever explicitly specified, many readers had assumed that she was white. Interviews with the author J.K. Rowling have since suggested that she intended the matter to be indeterminate; as far as Rowling is concerned, there was always ‘the possibility of Hermione being black’ given the way she was described in the text. In the wake of the controversy, Rowling notes that she has now ‘decided to simply state quite firmly that Hermione can be a black woman, with my absolute blessing and enthusiasm’ (Crompton 2016). While there are many facts about Hermione that are explicitly stated in the text – that she has buck teeth, that her parents are dentists, that she first meets Harry aboard the Hogwarts Express, and so on – there are also many matters besides her skin colour that are never explicitly addressed. Does she have both of her kidneys, for example? What’s her favourite movie? Has she ever ridden a unicycle?