BETWEEN FICTION AND REALITY: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE ANTI-COLONIAL MESSAGE OF THE BANTU RELIGIOUS PRACTICES IN “QUICUMBI ASSANHADA” BY ARNALDO SANTOS (original) (raw)

BANTU SPIRITUALISM IN "O CESTO DE ADIVINHAÇÃO" BY ANA PAULA TAVARES

ABRIL, 2018

This article analyses some of the linguistic and literary strategies used by Ana Paula Tavares 2 to describe the spiritual discourse of Bantu derivation in the chronicle (crônica) "O cesto de adivinhação", taken from the book A cabeça de Salomé (2004) 3. I will argue that, in this text, Tavares expresses the importance of spiritualism through the use of culture-bound terms, as well as the deployment of stylistic strategies, in order to redefine the Angola identity. The result of such literary creativity, matched with a deep historical and ethnographic investigation of the Bantu populations represented in her fictional work, supports the recreation of the Angolan identity that puts a great emphasis on aspects such as rituals, ancestral characters, and key figures that represent the culture of the native societies of the country. The aim is to discuss the ideological tensions and contradictions existing in Angola, as well as to inform and inspire a different perspective towards its multicultural society, through the words of the above author.

A Body to Make Luanda: The Black Woman from the Countryside in Angolan Literature

Journal of Lusophone Studies, 2016

This article examines how the image of the black woman from the countryside who moves to Luanda was developed at three key moments in Angolan literature as a means of constructing national identity. The analysis focuses on Nga Mutúri (1882), by Alfredo Troni ; “Linda,” a short story from A Casa da Mãezinha, by António Cardoso; and “Martinha,” a short story from Momento de Ilusão (2000), by Fragata de Morais.

'Angola, a nation in pieces in José Eduardo Agualusa’s Estação das chuvas'

In this article, I examine José Eduardo Agualusa’ s Estação das chuvas (1996), as a novel that lays bare the contradictions of the MPLA’ s revolutionary process after Angola’s independence. I begin with a discussion of the proximity between trauma and (the impossibility) of fiction. I then consider the challenges Angolan writers face in presenting an alternative discourse to the “one-party, one-people, one-nation” narrative propagated by the MPLA). Finally, I discuss how Estação das chuvas, which complicates both truth/verisimilitud and history/fiction, presents an alternative vision of Angola’ s national narrative. Ribeiro, R 2016, 'Angola, a nation in pieces in José Eduardo Agualusa’s Estação das chuvas' Journal of Lusophone Studies, vol 1, no. 1, pp. 57-72.

Uma língua africana no Brasil colônia de Seiscentos: O quimbundo ou língua de Angola na Arte de Pedro Dias, S.J.

2015

This book presents a complete analysis, a facsimile, and a semi-diplomatic edition of the first known Angolan language grammar, entitled Arte da Lingua de Angola, oeferecida [sic] a Virgem Senhora N[ossa] do Rosario, Mãy, e Senhora dos mesmos Pretos [Grammar of the Language of Angola, Offered to our Virgin Mother of the Rosary, and Lady of the Same Negroes] (Lisbon, 1697), written by Pedro Dias, S.J. (1621/22–1700).

A Tiny Spark. History and Memory of the Angolan Anticolonial Struggle in José Luandino Vieira's Papéis da prisão

Luso-Brazilian Review, 2022

From 1961 to 1972, the Angolan writer José Luandino Vieira was incarcerated by Portuguese colonial authorities because of his participation in the anticolonial struggle of Angola. In prison, he wrote most of his literary works, alongside a series of notebooks in which he reported his thoughts, feelings, literary and political considerations, etc. In 2015, after more than forty years after Vieira's release from prison, the notebooks were published in a volume titled Papéis da prisão. Apontamentos, diário, correspondência (1962-1971). In this article, I focus on how the book contributes to the debate on Angola's past by influencing how the years of the struggle for independence are perceived today and how they will be remembered in the future. I argue that Papéis is not simply a collection of the writer's intimate and personal memories as it bears witness to the experience of a larger community, a community that Vieira identifies with the Angolan nation. Briefly considering the political uses of memory, I show how Papéis stands apart from a crystallized official narrative of the anticolonial struggle, contributing to renewed discussions around Angola's past. These discussions aim to restore complexity, depth, and diversity to a narrative that is oversimplified and partisan. However, restoring complexity also implies showing the contradictions, conflicts, and tensions that emerged during the struggle. In this sense, the book is not a nostalgic tribute to the past, but rather a call to reflect on what the past still has to say to the present.

Fiction as History? Resistance, Complicities and the Intellectual History of Postcolonial Angola

2017

This research offers an interdisciplinary investigation of the intricate relations between literature, history and politics in Angola, focusing more specifically on the concepts of literary and political resistance and their instrumentalization since the anticolonial conflict. The thesis is mostly devoted to novels written after independence in 1975, encompassing a wide range of authors such as Pepetela, José Eduardo Agualusa, Ondjaki, Manuel Rui, Manuel Dos Santos Lima, Sousa Jamba and Boaventura Cardoso. This allows for a comparative perspective on the literary coverage of key topics, such as religion, the civil war or the 27th of May coup attempt, and highlights continuities and disjunctions within the forming novelistic canon of Angola. Comparing these works of fiction with academic sources on Angola and political discourses developed by the regime, this research assesses the contribution of autochthonous writers to debates on national identity, political authority and historical legacy in post-independence Angola. Through close reading and intertextual analysis, particular attention is devoted to the ways in which fiction has fed and shaped historical narratives and consciousness in Angola. I show how the novel has become a privileged site from which to address issues of collective memory and history-writing, in spite or because of the regime’s repeated attempts at tightly controlling the production of historical knowledge in the country. The strong relations uniting most Angolan writers to the MPLA, the ruling party since 1975, and the evolution of this complicity between artists and politicians at the highest levels of the nationalist party and the independent state allow for an original reflection on creativity, violence, race and class in a country still characterised nowadays by abysmal levels of inequality and authoritarian politics.