Novel
Auá: novela negra
Not translated into English
Fausto Duarte · 1934
Synopsis
Malam, a young Fula employed in Bissau as a domestic servant by a German couple, has gradually absorbed the manners and values of the white people. He returns to eastern Guinea to marry Auá, the most beautiful girl of his region, and his journey passes through Mansoa, Mansabá and Bafatá, an occasion to paint the landscapes and customs. Facing him, Abdulai, another young Fula who has remained faithful to the traditions and the Islam of his people, embodies the other civilisation.
Context
The book appeared in Lisbon in 1934 and received first prize in the colonial literature competition; Aquilino Ribeiro, who wrote the preface, and Vitorino Nemésio took notice of its author, and a third edition appeared in 1945. The author presented it as an ethnographic document attentive to Fula psychology. The text mixes Fula expressions and passages in German into the Portuguese, in a learned and refined language.
Who it is for
A novel in Portuguese, in an elaborate language, untranslated; it is read today with the distance that colonial literature requires.
Prizes and reception
It made its author's name, whom critics regard as a narrator of very high quality.
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