Reading World Literatures

Welcome to Lusophone Literature!

In the following weeks, we will get to know a little bit more about Lusophone Literature from Africa, from two countries that once belonged to the Portuguese empire: Angola and Mozambique. A long colonial past left them a common linguistic inheritance and for that reason their official language is the Portuguese. 

This course will highlight the fictional work two of the most interesting writers within the field of Lusophone Literature, who depicted the aftermaths of the war of Independence in both countries. They are both contemporary, about the same age, and they are actually close friends! You can see them in the - a bit distorted, sorry for that! - picture above. They often meet on book fairs, interviews, TV shows, exchange ideas on their next books and ask for each others' opinion on their manuscripts!

We will explore the fictional universe of these two writers from the point of view of post-colonialism and war genre.  For this purpose, I chose two great books, a novel,  A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa and, a short stories book, Rain and other stories, by Mia Couto.

I am a great fan of both but, I have to confess,  Agualusa A General Theory of Oblivion is one of my favorite books ever. One day, intrigued by how the characters and the places could look like, I decided to play around, grab some pics from the net and create a trailer for this book. I will tell you why later, but for now, have a quick look and tell me what you think. 

Did you notice that this book received a very prestigious literary award here in Dublin? Isn't it a funny coincidence?

Some more good news...

Not only we will enjoy two great stories but we also will use digital tools to analyse it! I will bring you to the world of Digital Literary Studies and we will explore some online tools for text visualisation and word statistics. We will examine the depiction of the war, post-colonialism, characters using computational analysis to retrieve key words, phrases, and tropes (themes) across the two texts, and draw conclusions based on quantifiable evidence. 

I am so excited about it! Hope that you too!

Introducing José Eduardo Agualusa

Lusophony

I bet this is a new word for you so let's unravel it!

Lusophones  are an ethno-linguistic group of peoples and nations across the world that speak the Portuguese language. The Lusofonia, also known as the Lusophone World, is the corresponding community of Lusophone nations, which exist in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. Lusophone nations make up more than 270 million people globally. 

The history of the Lusophone World is intrinsically linked with the history of the Portuguese Empire, although Portuguese diaspora and Brazilian diaspora communities have also played a role in spreading the Portuguese language and Lusophone culture. Today, Portuguese-speaking nations of the world come together for cooperation in politics, culture, and the economy, through the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth.

                                                                                                                                                                        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusophone

Luso 

Luso is the alleged son or companion of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and fury, to whom Roman mythology attributed the foundation of Lusitania, the current lands of Portugal and Spanish Extremadura.

Etymology

The term Lusophone combines "Luso-"  from the Latin term for an area roughly corresponding to modern Portugal, called Lusitania. The suffix "-phone" derives from the Ancient Greek word phōnē, meaning "voice".

The use of the term Lusophone mirrors similar terms, such as Anglophone for English-speakers, Francophone for French-speakers, Hispanophone for Spanish-speakers.

Map of Lusophony

Lusophone literature is literature written in Portuguese. Due to the existence of several countries belonging to Lusophony, Portuguese-language literature is part of several national literary expressions:

Angolan Literature Brazilian Literature Cape Verde Literature Guinea-Bissau Literature Literature of Mozambique Portuguese Literature Sao Tome and Principe Literature East-Timor Literature

United by language, Portugal and the countries listed above, establish an interesting dialogical relationship, a factor that allows Portuguese writers to be well known and read in these countries. Portuguese literature greatly influenced the construction of the literary identity of all of them, since the first manifestations of national literature occurred during the colonial period.