Speaking the post-colonial nation. Interviews with writers from Angola and Mozambique (original) (raw)
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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.
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.
2009
Mia Couto and Mozambique: The Renegotiation of the National Narrative and Identity in an African Nation (Under the direction of Professor Monica Rector) Mia Couto is a Mozambican author that problematizes questions of identity, inclusion and exclusion, and the consequences of the quest for modernity in Mozambique. Couto’s work is an urgently needed constructive effort to project an alternative model of Mozambican identity. This work is a critical interpretation of Couto’s work and my approach is framed within a Cultural Studies perspective. In Mozambique, forms of neo-colonial oppression still linger and guide the political decision-making process, excluding subjects that do not conform to Western visions of progress and modernity. Couto’s literature, language and narrative style enable him to voice the emotions, frustrations, and the triumphs of Mozambican peoples. All of his texts serve to represent the local lifestyle and resistance to neo-colonial acts of authority and oppressio...
Media and the Portuguese Empire, 2019
Because nations and nationalism are to a great extent cultural and not just ideological phenomena, the literature which heralded the Angolan nation undoubtedly played a key role in spreading the idea of independence. 1 Literature laid the ground for and developed alongside the political and military action of the various nationalist organisations, in particular those which came together in the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola). It is not necessary to subscribe entirely to the theory that
'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.
2016
This study is a comparative analysis of the representations of State, violence and wealth in early 21st Century novels belonging to the literatures of Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique and Sao Tome and Principe. It departs from a dialogue with the international criticism of these national literatures and with the field of postcolonial studies to produce a critical intervention which responds to these two wide fields of academic inquiry. As a result, this work argues for a transformation in both fields. It proposes that both the critique of African Literatures written in Portuguese and the field of postcolonial studies must turn their attention to the post-independence internal dimension of these countries in order to promote a much needed refashioning of the concept of postcoloniality.
African studies review, 2024
, the editors/translators shed light on the complexities of post-independence, decolonial perspectives and contemporary coloniality. The book illuminates the decolonial dynamics within Lusophone Africa, as the authors aim to establish "vital terrains of solidarity and collaboration beyond the borders and divisions (political or otherwise) instituted by imperialist Europe" (3). Moreover, they posit that in these countries, the notion of decoloniality stemmed from what Amilcar Cabral called "The Weapon of Theory", which entails educating their population and rethinking their own culture. Only then can be the reshaping of the economy and political independence be achieved. Aidoo and Silva consider Cabral's stance to be a "deep revision of Marxism" and "an important foundation for the advancement of anticolonial theory" (4) to "inaugurate anticolonial systems of meaning" (7). The collection is divided into five parts (one for each country), commencing with a captivating short story by the Angolan writer who also served as Minister of Culture, Boaventura Cardoso. "Pompeu e Costa Family" portrays the stark contrast between the lives of the wealthy white population and the impoverished black community. It has a powerful opening that sets the tone for the rest of the anthology. Readers will become familiar with other works, such as poems by Ana Paula Tavares, Ana de Santana, and Amélia da Lomba, three authors who bring a feminine and feminist viewpoint to the book. Besides the (de)colonial experience, diaspora is another theme that appears in Tavares's work: "we colonized life/planting/each one/in the sea of the other" (51). Santana's poetry is deeply ingrained in the trauma of colonization: "I count on the fingers/of my remaining hand/one by one/each century/[of the half a millennium of alien rape and murder]…" (65), while in da Lomba's writings we find a voice committed to decoloniality, as in, "Hands draw roots of the land's songs/Hands generate life in the identity of the flower within the letter's
Haiti and Mozambique: Postcolonial Literature in the Context of Combined and Uneven Development
e-cadernos CES, 2016
In this essay, I compare two narratives from different nations, Haiti and Mozambique, in order to analyze intersections between the postcolonial contexts in which each fiction is embedded. Two theoretical perspectives inform my reading of Nadine Pinede's "Departure Lounge" (2011) and João Paulo Borges Coelho's Campo de trânsito (2007). I draw first on Vivek Chibber's argument that postcolonial studies fail to provide an adequate basis for a theory of human rights and a practice of global solidarity. I then introduce the Warwick Research Collective's elaboration of a new theory of world literature constructed around the concept of "combined and uneven development". My discussion of "Departure Lounge" and Campo de trânsito subsequently focuses on the fictional portrayal of emergent practices within traditional societies experiencing a process of modernization and the effects of the world capitalist system. I conclude by proposing a way out of the limitations of postcolonial studies.