Poetry
Silêncio escancarado
Not translated into English
Rui Nogar · 1982
Synopsis
Poems, many of them born in Machava prison. In “De la jouissance du silence”, the prisoners address silence familiarly, share its bed and wake from the same sleep; “Pavillon 7, cellule 20” speaks of hard pillows, the mattress overflowing with ears of corn and the mosquitoes of the night; “Message de Machava” asserts, despite the bars and the police dogs, that love remains as simple as a child's smile. Elsewhere pass revolt, the swaying between Portugal and Mozambique and a quarrel with Christianity.
Context
Many of these poems were written in detention, after the arrest of 1964, and waited for independence to appear. The book came out in 1982 in Maputo, from the Instituto Nacional do Livro e do Disco, in the series of Mozambican authors: it was its author's only volume, whose other pieces, such as “Xicuembo”, remained scattered; another poem, “Nove Hora”, was staged by the Mutumbela Gogo troupe.
Who it is for
Poems in Portuguese, not translated into French, often brief, many of them written in prison.
Prizes and reception
Nelson Saúte sees in it the “literary testament” of the prison years; Honwana cited its author, along with Craveirinha and Noémia de Sousa, among the great poets of the country.
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