Poetry
Angola Angolê Angolema
Not translated into English
Arlindo Barbeitos · 1976
Synopsis
Short poems in free verse, in which nature dominates: a dark lagoon with golden eyes, a rainy night like a fire without flame, a great silence where the storm dwells. The poet wants to write green things and lets nature belong only to itself. Parallelisms, juxtapositions and repetitions recall riddles, proverbs and oral songs, each poem setting a comparison to be deciphered, and the colonial war runs through the book like an absurdity.
Context
According to one study, the book first appeared in the Netherlands in 1974; it appeared in Lisbon from Sá da Costa in 1976, at the same time as an Angolan edition, and was reissued in 1979. It opens with the transcription of a lecture given in Lisbon in 1975, in which the author defends a poetry written in the African languages and judges that Portuguese, if it became the country's only language, would be a cultural massacre; a glossary explains the Angolan words. Critics also note the imprint of the short forms of Germany and Asia.
Who it is for
Very short poems in Portuguese, often of only a few lines; no French or English translation.
Prizes and reception
The book with which its author entered literature; critics count it among the voices that renewed Angolan poetry in the seventies.
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