Literatura de intervenção e representações do corpo na poesia de autoras africanas

Abstract

Among the foundational generation of African authors writing in Portuguese in the 1950s, the most established feminine names are Noémia de Sousa and Alda do espírito Santo. This paper takes these two women writers as representative examples of the aims and the themes of the politically committed African litera- ture which promoted the struggle for national independence from Portuguese colo- nialism. The discussion of a selected poem by each of these two writers provides evidence of the centrality of metaphors related to the body, clothes, ornaments and body positions to create a poetry of intervention that invited reflection on wider issues such as political awareness of colonial exploitation and the self-assertion of African cultures. Thirty years later, for a second generation of African women writers the challenges and themes inviting intervention have changed and became more diverse. How do current writers relate to this previous tradition? The poetry of Vera Duarte, a writer from Cape Verde, will be analysed here, following metaphors related to the body as the means to assert collective aspirations and utopias. This case study will stand as an inspiring instance of the later paths taken by African poetry by feminine voices.