Poetry
Canto do Amor Natural
Not translated into English
Marcelino dos Santos · 1987
Synopsis
The combat poems of a founder of Frelimo, written from the fifties onwards under the pseudonyms Kalungano and Lilinho Micaia. The one that gives the book its title, written in Paris in 1953, sings of love “in the slow swaying of the palm trees”. In “We Must Plant”, the poet addresses his mother: one must plant everywhere, in the stars and on the sea, in forbidden hopes, the certainty of a happy tomorrow and the new tree of national independence. The mother returns often, an image of the land to be liberated, alongside poems that mean to be pamphlets.
Context
Twelve years after independence, the Mozambican writers' association published the volume in Maputo in 1987: it is the only book its author published under his own name, and its publication was regarded as a literary event. The poems were old, given until then to the newspaper O Brado Africano and to two anthologies published in Lisbon by students from the colonies, under two pseudonyms; a selection had appeared in the Soviet Union. The author was then president of the People's Assembly.
Who it is for
In Portuguese, with no French translation. Combative poetry, at times pamphleteering, which assumes that the struggle it called for is already known.
Prizes and reception
Reissued in 2021, a year after the author's death, the book was launched in the presence of the President of the Republic.
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