Short stories
We Killed Mangy-Dog and Other Stories
Nós matámos o Cão-Tinhoso
Luís Bernardo Honwana · 1964
Synopsis
Seven short stories, several told by a child of the colony. In the first, Ginho, mocked by his classmates, takes pity on Mangy-Dog, an old, sick stray dog with blue eyes; but the vet and senhor Duarte push the gang of boys to kill it, as if for a hunting party. In “Les Mains des Noirs”, a boy asks why the palm of Black people's hands is lighter than the rest of their skin, and everyone answers him with a story. In “Dina”, old Madala, who struggles with the maize harvest, says nothing before the white boss who covets his daughter.
Context
The book appeared in 1964, when its author was twenty-two; a note in the first edition traced his childhood in Moamba, in a family of eight children. Several stories are entrusted to children's voices, in simple Portuguese, and each character occupies a different place in colonial society, White, assimilated, indigenous or mixed-race. Translated into English as early as 1969, in the midst of the colonial war, the collection later passed into several other languages, including French in 1983.
Who it is for
Short stories in Portuguese, in plain language. The child's point of view dominates several of the texts.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the founding work of modern Mozambican literature, it marked the whole generation of writers after independence.
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