When Manuel Ferreira proposed publishing it in Portugal, Noémia de Sousa did not refuse the possibility of publishing outside of Mozambique. The condition came first: “Sangue Negro” had to be published in her country first. Fátima Mendonça recalls that the author was adamant on this point, even when other interlocutors offered her faster publishing routes from Europe.

This insistence did not mean isolation. The poems were already crossing borders in magazines, anthologies, and translations, and some had entered circuits linked to African nationalisms. The work circulated without a book while the author argued that the first formal collection of the texts should originate in the country where her political, social, and affective language had taken shape.

The option gained weight because Noémia had lived far from Mozambique since 1951. The distance did not sever the connection between the poetry and the territory, and it made the question of who would present that work as a whole more demanding. Publishing it first in Lisbon would have solved a practical difficulty, but it would have moved the inaugural gesture that the author reserved for her country outside of Mozambique.

There was also personal caution. Noémia was in no hurry to accept the status of a poet published in a book and wanted to review the organized notebook before leaving. When Rui Nogar contacted her, he considered the initiative premature. The refusal stemmed from two demands: time to decide about her own archive and Mozambican primacy for the edition that would bring together the scattered poems.

Noémia de Sousa also decided the geography of the first edition. By preserving Mozambique as the place of origin, she affirmed the priority of the territory of origin. The choice did not prevent later editions abroad, but it fixed the order in which "Sangue Negro" would go from notebooks and scattered texts to a published work.

The agreement that allowed progress did not resolve everything immediately. In 1996, Noémia de Sousa met in Mozambique with Fátima Mendonça, Nelson Saúte, and Francisco Noa to finalize the details of the future edition. It was decided that the book would reproduce the content of the notebook compiled by the author, preserving the architecture that existed before her departure from the country several decades earlier.

Fixing the text became a central task. Fátima Mendonça worked from the copy deposited in the Historical Archive of Mozambique, while the edition sought to respect the photocopied version that Noémia had agreed to preserve. Nelson Saúte assumed editorial coordination, and Júlio Navarro oversaw production at AEMO. Francisco Noa prepared an essay to provide a literary context for the work.

The volume retained traces of its journey prior to the book's creation. The edition retained the dedication to Cassiano Caldas and João Mendes and incorporated contextual texts. João Mendes, Noémia's companion in her youth, left a testimonial for the back cover. The composition sought to present the collected poetry without erasing the material history of the notebook or the network of relationships that sustained it.

“Black Blood” was finally launched in Maputo on September 20, 2001, the day Noémia turned 75. The publishing house was the Mozambican Writers Association. The author, already ill in Portugal, was not present at the ceremony. Fátima Mendonça and Nelson Saúte later took her a copy to Cascais, ending a wait that had spanned much of her adult life.

After its debut in Mozambique, the work would be republished in the country and reach Brazil. It would also have a French edition, while Portugal would continue without its own edition. The sequence fulfilled the condition maintained by Noémia: external circulation would proceed after the editorial debut in Mozambique.

The delay in publishing “Sangue Negro” cannot be interpreted solely as an editorial delay. For decades, Noémia de Sousa has separated two decisions that are often confused: allowing the poems to circulate and authorizing their collection in a book.

For the second, she defined a starting point. Mozambique would have to receive first the work born from the country's colonial and social experience. This choice returns to the author a power that literary history sometimes grants to editors, critics, or publishing houses: the power to decide how a work enters the world.

The book only became a published work when Noémia's will found a Mozambican structure capable of consolidating the text, organizing the essays, and assuming the imprint. On the eve of the poet's centenary, this story allows us to reread "Black Blood" through its language and the gesture that preceded the cover: choosing who would have the right to present it first.