The Postcolonial Literature of Lusophone Africa by Patrick Chabal et al

ISBN: 9781868142965

Wits University Press 1996

Soft Cover, 320 pages

This volume examines the Portuguese and Creole languages of the five African Portuguese-speaking countries: Angola; Cape Verde; Guinea-Bissau; Mozambique; and Seo Tome and Principe. The introduction explores the cultural and historical context within which the literature of these five countries was written. It is followed by detailed discussion of, and extensive quotations from, the prose and poetry published by the writers since independence. The volume is designed to serve both as a textbook for students of the literature of the Lusophone countries and as a cultural and intellectual foundation for specialist readers with an interest in the former Portuguese colonial empire. The book combines a literary and historical approach which helps to explain the very complex processes by which literature emerged in African societies noted for their intricate racial, ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity. It links African Lusophone literature to its three major cultural settings: the oral cultural tradition of African or Creole literatures; the broader context of Portuguese-language literature in Portugal and Brazil; and the 20th-century development of a distinct "black" literature in North America, the Caribbean and Europe. Finally, it discusses the ways in which Lusophone African literature relates more widely to the emergence of an original modern literature in post-colonial Africa.