The literature African in Portuguese language.

Featured image: Painting “The Cradle of Life” by artist Xesko.

African Literature in Portuguese Language is a precious stone on the African continent. A mixture of politics, tribes, dialects and a lot of mysticism in a fantastic cultural universe. Literature at its roots and in its land of origin reported through the identity of a people.

This very peculiar literature was born out of a historical situation that originated in the XNUMXth century, a time when the Portuguese (chronists, poets, historians, travel writers, men of science and of the great European literatures) began the route of Africa, continuing later through Asia , Oceania and the Americas.

The origin of PALOP literature

Gomes Eanes de Zurara, João de Barros, Diogo de Couto, Camões, Fernão Mendes Pinto, Damião de Góis, Garcia de Orta, Duarte Pacheco Pereira are some of the names whose discourse is fueled by the “knowledge of experience gained”, achieved from the XNUMXth century onwards. XNUMXth century, in decline in the XNUMXth century and sold out in the XNUMXth century.

The work of Gil Vicente (XNUMXth century) or, although scarcely, that of poets from the songbooks (XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries) alongside “things to play”, were marked by the expansion throughout the “barbarian kingdoms”. It is a literature made by the Portuguese, the result of the adventure overseas, in the Renaissance period, which was called the literature of discoveries.

This literature, born of a planetary experience, has nothing to do with African literature in Portuguese. This record only serves to contextualize facts related to the cultural and political framework that a century and later would emerge in the past.

Indeed, from the 1900th century onwards, the process of colonization in Africa began, which, centuries later, determined the emergence of a new literature, colonial literature (1939-XNUMX).

Colonial Literature vs Literature of the Discoveries

While the literature of the discoveries was based on travel reports made by navigators, writers, merchants, etc., narrating events that took place during these journeys, colonial literature portrays the experience of the Portuguese overseas.

In this literature, the center of the narrative and poetic universe is the European man and not the African man. It was a profoundly racist literature, where the ideas of inferiority of the black man predominated, which racist theorists, such as Gobineau, had spilled, and to which the philosopher Lévy Bruhl would have contributed with his pre-logical mentality thesis.

It is also important to say that, in this literature, Africa was seen only as a beautiful landscape, or a paradise, and the protagonist of this landscape was the European man. It is, therefore, a literature fundamentally characterized by the exploitation of man by man.

It must be said that these racist discourses were the result of the mentality of the time, from the political-social point of view. However, there were some writers such as João de Lemos (Almas Negras) and José Osório de Oliveira (“Roteiro de África”) who tried to understand the mentality of the black man, as there is a humanistic intention in their works.

However, it is due to the harsh and reprehensible characteristics of colonial literature, as well as the creation and development of official education and the expansion of private education, freedom of expression and the installation of the press (from the 40s onwards ) that will propel the emergence of a new literature that is conventionally called African literature of Portuguese expression.

Portuguese-speaking African literature

Indeed, a few years later, after the installation of the press in Angola, the publication of the book “Spontaneity of my soul” (1949) by the Angolan mestizo José da Silva Maia Ferreira, the first book printed in Portuguese-speaking Africa, but not the oldest work by the African author.

Previous to this was the poem by Cape Verdean Antónia Gertrudes Pusish, “Elegy to the memory of the unfortunate victims murdered by Francisco de Mattos Lobo, on the night of June 25, 1844”, published in Lisbon in the same year.

African literature, as a set of literary works that translate a certain Africanness, takes this designation because Africa is the reason for its message to the world, because the technical processes of its writing stand against the European and Europeanizing fad.

John called it Neo-African literature because it is written in European languages ​​and to differentiate it from oral literature produced in African languages. In this literature, the center of the universe is no longer the European man and becomes the African man.

African-based literature

It is necessary to emphasize that this type of literature, called African literature of Portuguese expression, gains a new specialization, taking the designation of literature of African roots.

This literature had its origin through confrontation, literary, linguistic and ideological rebellion, and revolutionary awareness from the 40s onwards (XNUMXth century).

It is important to mention that it was a literature aimed particularly at Africans and written in local languages ​​mixed with “Portuguese”, as the purpose was to make writing inaccessible to Europeans, that is, not to allow the white man to decode their messages.

Hence the introduction in the works of Angolan poets (Agostinho Neto, António Jacinto, Pinto de Andrade, Luandino Vieira, etc.) of idiomatic words and phrases in Kimbundu and Umbundu, and in many other African authors such as Mutimati Bernabé João (Mozambican).

This phase goes from the mid-40s to independence (mid-70s). “The true life of Domingo Chavier” by Luandino Vieira and the “Sagrada esperanza” by Agostinho Neto are texts impregnated with visible marks of political revolt that are most translated in the four corners of the world.

It is in this way that African literature combats exoticism in all its forms and presents itself to recover traditional narratives, using significant rhythms borrowed from popular cultures.

What do you think of this historical evolution of African literature in Portuguese? Did you know it had evolved this way? We want to know your opinion, do not hesitate to comment and if you liked the article, share and give a “like/like”.

Picture: © 2011 Xesko