Novel
As Lágrimas e o Vento
Not translated into English
Manuel dos Santos Lima · 1975
Synopsis
An Angolan mobilised by the Portuguese army while studying in Lisbon goes over to the liberation guerrilla and becomes a commander. In the camps, the recruits hear described the independent State to come, its ministers, its civil servants and its Black officers. Almi Boaventura, a man trained in the European way, feels a stranger before witchcraft, tribalism and racism, and, as an instructor, thinks about the place of mixed-race people in the struggle; the notebook of a dead Portuguese soldier is brought to him.
Context
The novel appeared in Lisbon in 1975 with the éditions África, ten years after a first novel, and was reissued in Porto in 1989. A study from the University of Porto sees in Almi Boaventura, whose name is an anagram of the author's, a double of the writer, and notes a realist, omniscient narration. An Angolan critic, by contrast, stresses its allegorical dimension, its places, characters and actions referring to figures and events of recent history.
Who it is for
A novel in Portuguese, which assumes some knowledge of the Angolan war of independence; no French or English translation.
Prizes and reception
Compared by critics to another major Angolan novel of the guerrilla war; debated in 2017 at the Angolan Writers' Union.
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