São Tomé and Príncipe / All works
Poetry
O canto do ossobó
Not translated into English
Marcelo da Veiga · 1989
Synopsis
The collection gathers poems written over a whole lifetime, the oldest, “Evocação”, dating from 1917. They deal with cultural identity, nationalism and the demands of the São Toméan people; in “A língua própria” and “O idioma é a pátria”, the poet claims a language for his people, “Povo sem fala sua ou língua!”. The title names the ossobó, a bird associated with rain.
Context
Edited by Manuel Ferreira, the collection appeared in 1989 at Linda-a-Velha, from África, Literatura, Arte e Cultura, twelve years after the poet's death. Luciana Ribeiro de Souza reads in it the assertion of a São Toméan identity through language, with poems dated 1963 and 1967, written during the author's second stay in Portugal, and Silvie Špánková places this poetry among those that recover the collective memory of the archipelago.
Who it is for
For reading a forerunner of São Toméan national poetry, who made language a matter of homeland.
Prizes and reception
Inocência Mata regards him as the most prolific and most varied São Toméan writer.
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