Kandjimbo, Angolan Literature & Incipient Canon.pdf

• REsEaRch in afRican litERatuREs, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Spring 2007). © 2007 •

Angolan Literature in the Presence of an Incipient Canon of Literatures Written in Portuguese

LuíS KANdjImboCultural Attaché, Angolan Embassy in Portugal

INtroduCtIoN

I admit to never having had any experience teaching Angolan literature or any other literature written in Portuguese in a foreign scholastic context. Never-theless, I am familiar in general with the readings that others have done of

Angolan literature as well as other African literatures. this knowledge results from what I have read in the works of literary critics and researchers whose intended readers are not Africans. my familiarity also has to do with both those who are Africans and those who are not and who teach at universities in Africa. but all of those teachers recognize, however, the inefficacy of the instruments with which the researchers operate in realizing their readings, principally when one does not work from an interdisciplinary perspective.

two Portuguese scholars who research and teach lusophone African litera-ture appear to be relatively aware of this inefficacy. Writing in Ensaios de Literatura Comparada Afro-Brasileira (Essays on Afro-brazilian Comparative Literature), Sal-vato trigo maintains that Angolan and other lusophone African literatures create a problem: “o problema da alteridade ético-estética que permite a essas literaturas a construção de universos simbólicos e referenciais cuja leitura exige de nós um aprofundado conhecimento antropológico-cultural do mundo africano, realidade cultural e civilizacionalmente mestiço, como vimos” ‘the problem of cultural- aesthetic otherness that permits in these literatures the construction of symbolic and referential universes, our reading of which demands a profound anthro-pological-cultural knowledge of the African world, which, as we have noted, is hybrid in its cultural reality and with respect to civilization’ (73).

In a similar manner, Pires Laranjeira makes the following observation: “Como se compreende, uma disciplina de liteatura africana tem, por isso, proble-mas específicos que não se encontram nas de literatura portuguesa ou mesmo francesa, italiana ou brasilileira por estarem relacionadas com países cuja reali-dade é, no mínimo que se possa dizer, um pouco mais familiar aos alunos” ‘As we understand, an African literature discipline thus has specific problems that are not found in Portuguese literature or even in French or brazilian because they are

10 • REsEaRch in afRican litERatuREs

identified with countries whose reality is, at the very least, a little more familiar to the students’ (8).

After recognizing the existence of other important problems, Laranjeira then offers the following opinion:

Compreende-se, assim, que o interesse de uma cadeira de literaturas africanas não se esgote na literatura, sendo necessário convocar outras disciplinas, nem sempre presentes no ensino de outras literatuas, para melhor descodificar textos e seus contextos de criação e recepção, como sejam a antropologia, a história de Africa, as metafísicas tradicionais bantas [leia-se bantu], a sociologia, a história comparada das religiões, a história das instituições políticas, a história das mentalidades, a mitocrítica, etc.

As one can readily understand, the interest of a professor of African literature is not limited to the subject matter, and that he or she must also convoke other disciplines, which are not always called upon by those who teach European and other literatures, in order to decode texts and their contexts of creation and receptions. thus, many literary critics and teachers of literature may, in carrying out their research, bring to bear such disciplines as anthropology, African history, traditional bantu metaphysics, the sociology and comparative history of religions, the history of political institutions, history of mentalities, mythology, etc. (9)

In O Conhecimento da Literatura (the Knowledge of Literature), in a footnote that appears in a chapter devoted to the subject of literature as an institution, Carlos reis denounces the existence, in the Portuguese academic community, of the following:

[. . .] uma mal disfarçada resistência contra o reconhecimento do significado próprio das chamadas Literaturas de Expressão Portuguesa; fruto, em parte, de reminiscências ideológicas de raiz colonialista, essa resistência ideológica de raiz colonialista, essa resistência funda-se também na leitura de tais literaturas à luz do cânone literário português e europeu, leitura que, desse ponto de vista, é naturalmente desqualificadora.

[. . .] a poorly disguised resistance to the very meaning of the so-called African Literatures of Portuguese Expression, the latter being, in part, the result of the idelological reminiscences of colonialist origins. this ideological resistance is also has its source in the reading of these African literatures in light of the Portuguese and, in general, the European canon. Quite naturally, such a reading constitutes a disqualifying point of view. (77)

As it pertains to Portugal the foregoing observation is verifiable two decades after the introduction, in 1975, of the discipline of African Literatures of Portu-guese Expression. In Portugal this discipline was institutionalized by decree n. 58 on 31 may 1978. the recognition of the inefficacy of such a reading is likewise verifiable in much of the English- and French-speaking world outside of Africa. thomas Hale, an American professor of African literature, has observed that because the term “humanities” is of European origin, very few of his colleagues in the more traditional disciplines have thought of looking into whether Africa could possibly be a source of the type of values that characterize the classics of the West.

luís Kandjimbo • 11

In “African Literatures, Humanities, and Humans” Hale asserts that “we need to globalize the notion of humanities to include literatures by any people” (95).

According to Elizabeth Gunner, writing in her article “African Literature and the Canon,”[i]n Great britain the African canon developed in a context that combines antipathy and apathy with respect to the notion of African literature written in English” (101).

Edward Wright also makes some pertinent observations on the matter of the aesthetic patterns with which much Western critical discourse operates when the subject is anglophone African Literature. In The Evaluation of African Literature, Wright focuses on a number of important issues, two of which are especially pertinent. The first of these issues can be put into the form of a query about the applicability of a general critical theory to cultures totally distinct in their origins from those that constitute the material source of the theory. the second issue has to do with the reading public and a given author’s intentions. In other words, although the vocabulary and syntax follow the same rules, the cultures of references differ (1–22).

Peter Young, in his “tradition, Language, and the reintegration of Identity in West African Literature in English,” comes to conclusions similar to those put forth by Edgar Wright. Young makes the following observation: “An adequate criticism of African literatures, like that of any other literature, presupposes the establishment and acceptance of a set of precriterial criteria between the writer and the reader” (24). there are, of course, some historical experiences consecrated by the contacts established among today’s eight lusophone countries. these contacts notwithstanding, it should be noted that any strategy aimed at making literature in Portuguese more available outside the Comunidade de Países de Língua Portu-guesa (CPLP–Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries), and, despite a solid reciprocal knowledge among them, even within this group of eight nations, pre-supposes certain significant considerations. Bearing in mind the afore-mentioned poorly disguised Portuguese resistance, any such strategy of the distribution of literary works presupposes the introduction, in the respective pedagogical sys-tems, of such autonomous disciplines as Portuguese-language literatures, African history, and the history of South America. this very issue has led the chiefs of state and other government officials of the CPLP to formulate a resolution.1

Also considered in this introduction are problems having to do with termi-nologies, the designations of disciplines, and academic departments in which such instruction occurs. today, as in the past, in Portugal, in other European countries, and in North and South America, specifically Brazil, courses on lusophone Afri-can literature are usually offered under the general rubric of Portuguese or Luso- brazilian studies. In considering the perplexities of such nomenclatures, which reduce the specificity of each one of those literatures, what seems to be recom-mended is the reading of works from a comparative perspective. Such an approach permits us to speak of the creation of an African “stream” in courses on modern literatures whose objective might give rise to specialists in the area of lusophone African literatures. Ideally, these specialists are capable of establishing the needed links leading to a dialogue with scholars dedicated to the study of African litera-tures written in English and French. jean-marie Grassin addresses this matter in

“dire la Parole Africaine Aujourd’hui” (to Say the African Word today):


Il s’agirait au contraire de metre en valeur sa specificité et son role au sein des grands ensembles littéraire auxquels elle a apporté sa contribution . [. . .] un comparatisme intra-africain permettrait de situer, par l’edude des correlates esternes, la culture africaine dans les grands corants artistique, politiques et sociaux de la planète sans doute mieux quúne approche de la parole africaine au sein des grands ensembles exophones.

It would mean, to the contrary, to underscore its specificity and role at the heart of the large literary communities to which it makes its contribution. [. . .] An inter-African comparative approach would allow us to situate, through the study of correlates, African culture in the planet’s large artistic, political, and social movements no doubt better than an approach based on African speech at the heart of large exophone communities. (265–66)

In Angola’s current secondary school and university curricula there exists nothing that translates into the teaching of Angolan or Portuguese literature. the Portuguese language is, consequently, an isolated discipline provided without systematized means. It thus happens that in all of secondary school instruction the students are not subjected to the required reading of works, none of which is Angolan or, for that matter, of any other lusophone country. on a personal note, I might observe that a similar observation has resulted from my experience as a high school teacher in Angola during the 1980s. I make reference to that experi-ence in my book Apologia de Kalitangi: Ensaio e Crítica (Kalitangi’s Apology: Essay and Criticism).

At this time I have no definitive knowledge as to whether the instructional and curricular reforms undergone by secondary education in Angola have resulted in the introduction of Angolan works and lusophone literatures in general. In Por-tugal the most recent curricular reforms perhaps are useful indicators with respect to hat is occurring in Angola, where, as regards the curricular matrixes of general high school language and literature courses, the discipline of lusophone literatures was introduced as an optional, but not required, graduation component.2

on the other hand, in applying the hypothesis of the “sphere outside of the CPLP,” this sphere referring to those African countries whose official language is French, English, Spanish, and others, we can affirm that courses on literatures written in Portuguese are increasingly being offered in some non-CPLP nations. Lamentably, Angola does not contribute, with any of its literary system’s ele-ments, to the presence of its literature in any of those non-Portuguese speaking countries.

the present article examines the current process in the formulation of the Angolan literary canon as part of that which could come to be the “communitarian canon.” I put forth the idea that in more consistent contexts such might be brought about by means of the formulation of a strategy and minimal canon for the pur-pose of giving broader exposure to these literatures, transmitting the pertinent paradigm in the framework of departments of Portuguese studies, brazilian or Luso-brazilian and African studies. Such strategies should always begin with a common and reciprocal knowledge of the countries that make up the CPLP. the sum of the strategy constitutes actions that gravitate around a problematic having to do with the diffusion of Portuguese-language literatures in Francophone and Anglophone African countries.


buILdING tHE ANGoLAN LItErArY CANoN

before considering the formulation and diffusion of a minimal canon to serve as a basis for the teaching of Portuguese-language literatures in other language realms, it behoves us to consider the structure of the curricula that already exist in the CPLP. It is not feasible, of course, for us to review, in the present article, the structure of the curricula in all eight of the countries whose official language is Portuguese. We thus use as examples the cases pertaining to Angola and Portugal.

throughout the current postindependence period, now in its third decade, the teaching of Angola’s literature at that country’s university level, with respect to a framework of systematic studies, has to be institutionally recognized. I made the foregoing observation while a witness to the suspension of modern literature courses on the Lubango campus, in southern Angola, at Agostinho Neto uni-versity, where, in the 1980s, I initiated my postsecondary studies. About twenty years after the suspension of modern literature courses on the Lubango campus, the Fundação Gomes teixeira (Gomes teixeira Foundation) and the university of Porto, in northern Portugal, under contract with the Angolan government and the World bank, drew up a report issued in 1996 under the title Contributos para a Revitalização da Universidade em Angola (Contributions to the revitalization of the university in Angola). to date said report is the only one that offers an appraisal of Agostinho Neto university. the report highlights “a inexistência de uma uni-dade orgânica dedicada às Letras, Humanidades e Ciências Sociais e Humanas” ‘the absence of an organic unit dedicated to Literature, Humanities, and Social and Human Science’ (433), which is considered to be “a carência mais evidente da universidade Agostinho Neto, em termos da sua organização interna em função da cobertura dos diferentes domínios do saber” ‘Agostinho Neto university’s most obvious need in terms of its internal organization as a function of its attention to the various domains of knowledge’ (433). the report concludes with the recom-mendation for the establishment “de uma escola, no âmbito da uAN, com dupla valência, das Letras e Humanidades, por um lado e das Ciências Sociais e Huma-nas, por outro, deve constituir um dos eixos de reestruturação e relançamento do ensino superior em Angola” ‘of a school at Agostinho Neto university that on the one hand includes Literature and the Humanities and on the other hand includes Social and Human Sciences, and that constitutes one of the main components of the restructuring and recasting of higher education in Angola’ (434).

When, in 1980, the College of Letters was suspended in the city of Lubango, the teaching of literature was in line with the model that had been established, in 1963, in Portugal’s General university Studies program. After the fall, on 25 April 1974, of Portugal’s fascist regime, alterations in the curriculum were intro-duced with the establishment of courses in Angolan literature and Lusophone African literatures in general. Since the establishment of the Instituto Superior de Ciências da Educação (ISCEd–Higher Institute of Education Sciences) to take the place of the College of Letters, we note the virtual absence of literary studies and the further development of a partial and fragmentary teaching of Angolan literature in secondary schools, along with a complete lack of such instruction at the university level. this inhospitable panorama has been somewhat alleviated by the introduction of professional training courses. one example is the cur-riculum of the National radio of Angola, a program for the training of reporters,


news broadcasters, and production personnel. And starting in the 1980s, courses on Angolan literature also have made up a significant part of the National Radio curriculum. Finally, toward the end of the decade of 1980 literature courses were also included in the curriculum of the intermediate journalism program. these isolated initiatives of teaching and the recognition of the force of literary creativ-ity notwithstanding, we still must verify a resistance to the need for a different epistemological attitude as regards Angolan works, especially since the advent of new critical readings and approaches. the fetishes of theory and widely accepted modes of Western literary criticism continue to be overwhelming, confronted only by the generalized inertia that permeates the consciousness of some readers and, indeed, of some writers.

It does not cease to be paradoxical on one hand to defend a theory of Angolan-ness that ought to constitute the framework of a literary historiography and that may compete for the creation of an Angolan literary canon. on the other hand, there exist in Angola no literary studies that have been institutionalised on the level of research and teaching. Some of the lacunae, which reflect an inharmonious functioning of the Angolan literary system, are precariously filled in by an activ-ity that can count on only a few practitioners among Angolan critics, including, I might note, the author of these words. In an environment such as Luanda and a few other urban Angolan settings, there are relatively few locally published books, a fascination with manuals on the teaching of the Portuguese language and litera-ture, along with the seductive power of critical discourses fashioned in Portugal. It is indeed by means of these discourses that approaches to literature are anchored in such theories as Negritude, mainly directed at a Portuguese readership.3

the relative scarcity of materials used in studying literature and, as a conse-quence, the minimal production of an endogenous literary criticism have given rise to the reproduction of the Portuguese pedagogical model in Angolan sec-ondary school education. this model obviously accompanies the teaching of the Portuguese language as the primary means of preparing students to read Angolan literature.4 A professorial chair of Lusophone African Literatures was to be created for the purpose of offering courses starting in the 2000–2001 academic year in Luanda’s Institute of Education Sciences. Although such a chair has not yet come into being, the Angolan literary system can meanwhile count on other components to keep it functioning. one such component is the Angolan Writers union. Liter-ary endeavors are also buoyed by several award competitions, the major ones being the following: Sonangol Literary Award; Sagrada Esperança (Sacred Hope) Literary Award; António jacinto Literary Award; mário Pinto de Andrade Liter-ary Essay Award; National Culture and Arts Award. the literary scene in Angola also benefits from such culture/literature magazines and journals as the Angolan Writers union’s Gazeta (Gazette) and the ministry of Culture’s Mensagem (message), “Vida Cultural” (Cultural Life) a popular literary supplement appears regularly in the major Luanda newspaper Jornal de Angola (journal of Angola). moreover, there are television programs and bookstores—in Luanda one can acquire liter-ary works at Lello, Angola’s oldest bookstore, Livraria Ler e Escrever (read and Write bookstore), mestria” (mastery), and Livraria Som e Livro (the Sound and book bookstore). Also deserving of mention are these national publishing houses: Angola Writers union; Nzila; Instituto Angolano do Livro e do disco (Angolan book and recording Institute); Chá de Caxinda (tea of Caxinde Press).


one thus readily notes that a still emerging nation cannot do without a sociocultural dimension, because the latter tends to legitimate an autonomous culture’s own identity. For that very reason such a legitimation is why a national literary canon needs to be constituted. In this regard, Harold bloom, the American university professor and essayist, avers, in his The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages, that “cognition cannot proceed without memory, and the Canon is the true art of memory, the authentic foundation for cultural thinking” (35).

because there are no universal literary canons, we need to think in terms of a certain relativism with respect to the formation of an Angolan one. We should do so if we wish to keep in mind the three factors that, according to Carlos reis, concur with the afore-alluded to process. According to reis, these three factors are the following:

[uma] selectividade que trata de estabelcer, de forma não necessariamente siste-mática ou programada, as obras e autores que correspondem a uma identidade cultural e literária, entendida como ortodoxa e maioritariamente representativa; a continuidade, ou seja, a permanência, ao longo de um tempo histórico alargado, de obras e autores que fundam nessa permanência a sua autoridade cultural; a formatividade, critério de ordem pedagógica e também ideológica, que leva a reter no cânone aquelas obras e autores que se entende serem reprodutivos de uma certa (e algo estável) ordem social e cultural, que se deseja insinuada no sistema de ensino.

[A] selectivity that seeks to establish, in a number not necessarily systematic or programmed, the works and authors that correspond to a cultural/literary identity, understood as orthodox and representative of the majority; the conti-nuity, or, as it were, the permanency, throughout a lengthy historical period, of works and authors that lay the foundations of the permanency of their cultural authority; the formativeness, criterion of pedagogic as well as ideological order, which leads to retaining in the canon those works and authors that one takes to be reproductive of a certain (and reasonably stable) social and cultural order that one would wish to see integrated into the teaching system. (72–73)

the selection of our Angolan literary canon has to differ from the selection of those works from this literature that become established in foreign instructional systems in which are offered courses on African literatures. It is precisely this that occurs with respect to the discipline of African Literature of Portuguese Expres-sion. In Portugal the latter can be found in the curriculum for the bachelor’s degree in Languages and modern Literatures, a variant of Portuguese Studies.

With all due selectivity, the Angolan literary establishment cannot refrain from excluding from its canon those works that reflect the absence of Angolan-ness and the negation of said works’ autonomy on an ontological level. Such works are, for example, Nga Muturi, by Alfredo troni, the works of the Portuguese poet Tomás Vieira da Cruz, Castro Soromenho’s three major works of prose fiction, and Pepetela’s novel Yaka. It should be noted, however, that the canon established for African literature programs at such Portuguese institutions of higher education as the university of Porto and the open university in Lisbon does indeed include some or all of the aforementioned works and authors.

thus far we have been referring to the literary canon as presented in the European tradition, starting with Plato, and proceeding through the project of


European modernity brought about in part by the French revolution.5 In this project, to paraphrase Itamar Even-Zohar, literature functions as a salient agent of sociocultural cohesion and the building of a nation (see Even-Zohar’s “La Función de la Literatura en la Creación de las Naciones de Europa” [the Function of Literature in the Creation of the Nations of Europe]). It is precisely because of the situation referred to above that the geo-epistemology of the discourses about Angola raises doubts as to the reach and effectiveness of the stratagems underly-ing the formation of literary canons. If, on the other hand, we heed the appeals imposed on Angolan literary historiography, in which the concept of Angolan literature is not limited to texts written in Portuguese, but extends to texts com-posed in indigenous African languages as well as to “orature,” we are compelled to revise the criteria that administer the process of formulating a canon. As early as the nineteenth century, in Angola there were some staunch defenders of the importance of the oral tradition. In the front line of these defenders stands joaquim dias Cordeiro da matta, a native-born writer who possessed a keen sense of the power of traditional orality. Writing in the preface to his Folk-tales of Angola, Heli Chatelain, the Swiss missionary and ethnographer, attests to Cordeiro da matta’s grandeur: “the future of native Angolan literature in Ki-mbundu [. . .] is now practically assured. j. Cordeiro da matta, the Negro poet of the Quanza river, has abandoned the Portuguese muse in order to consecrate his talents to the nascent national literature” (viii). despite Cordeiro da matta’s and other black Angolans’ apparent abandonment of the Portuguese muse, along with the paradigm of Creole nativism or “Creoleness,” the literary canon is nonetheless an emanation of the reductionist vision that conditions the concept of Angolan literature to the diffu-sion of the Portuguese language and culture. Angolan oral literature, or “orature,” and the texts written in indigenous languages occupy, at best, a marginal place. Apropos of the latter observation, in his presentation of the program for the pro-fessorial chair of “African Literature of Portuguese Expression,” Pires Laranjeira makes the following assertion: “As literaturas de língua portuguesa incluem as literaturas originariamente escritas em língua portuguesa, segundo um padrão básico de tradição europeia escrita, nos cinco países africanos de língua oficial por-tuguesa, antes e depois da independência [. . .]” ‘African literatures in Portuguese encompass those originally written in Portuguese according to the basic pattern of a European writing tradition in the five countries whose official language has been and is Portuguese, before and after independence [. . .]’ (3). In many nonlusophone African countries there also exists the question of oral literature’s rightful place in the college curriculum. one of the best know manifestations of this question was put forth in the 1960s by such writers and academics as Ngugi wa thiong’o, taban Lo Liyong, and Awor-Anyumba who, at the university of Nairobi, in defending their attribution of the greater importance of the study of African literatures, called for, as a consequence, the elimination of the English department. Some thirty years after having issued such a call, in Penpoints, Gunpoints, and Dreams: Towards a Critical Theory of the Arts and State in Africa, Ngugi wa thiong’o offers the following clarification:

the call was not for abolition of English literature as such, but for the re-organi-zation of English departments so that they would properly reflect the realities of the twentieth century and the world [. . .]. the restructuring would also allow


the introduction of works written in English from other regions and cultures [. . .]. Central African literature would be what was then initially termed “oral literature.” (106–07)

Similarly, in the 1980s the Nigerian critics Chinweizu, onsuchedwa jemie, and Ihechukwu madubuike, writing in Toward the Decolonization of African Litera-ture, propose replacing departments of European languages and literatures with the following: department of African Languages, oratory, and Literatures; department of Comparative Literature; department of Colonial Languages.

What designation to use enters into the debate with respect to African Litera-tures in Portuguese. the late manuel Ferreira, a highly regarded Portuguese writer and scholar who devoted much of his research to lusophone African literature, holds forth on the matter in his O Discurso no Percurso Africano (discourse on the African trajectory). Ferreira maintains in his study that to use the designation “literaturas de expressão portuguesa” ‘literatures of Portuguese expression’ is to indulge in ambiguity and contradiction. Although Ferreira held the first professor-ship of African Literatures of Portuguese Expression at the university of Lisbon, he admitted to not having had any influence on the use or non-use of that designation. Ferreira made the following observation: Os responsáveis sabiam que ao oficiali-zar aquela expressão estavam linguística e semanticamente inseridos no contexto histórico-cultural” ‘those responsible knew that upon officializing that expression they were inserting themselves into the historical-cultural context’ (204). the afore-mentioned Pires Laranjeira, in the prologue to his manual, compiled for students at Lisbon’s open university, uses the designation African Literature in Portuguese. but as the manual’s title indicates, the collection indeed focuses on African Lit-erature of Portuguese Expression. As already noted, Carlos reis also employs the latter designation in studies and anthologies he has published over the years.

Having considered the question of designations, I should reiterate the sig-nificance of the term “oral literature” and the role of indigenous Bantu languages in the formulation of a literary canon in Angola’s academic institutions. At this juncture I again turn to some pertinent observations on the part of Cordeiro da matta. In the preface to his Ensaio de Dicionário Kimbundu-Portuguez he writes:

Sendo o auctor d’este Ensaio angolense, que cresceu, aprendeu e viveu entre os seus, esmerou-se quanto lhe foi possível em escrever se não bem, com todo o desvelo, a língua da sua terra, que apezar de quatrocentos annos de domínio portuguez, conserva inalterável—coisa que é para admirar—a pureza da sua dicção; quando, como era de esperar, por tel-o [sic] succedido aos idiomas da Peninsula, na conquista romana, já devia existir o mais tenue vestigio do Kim-bundu, se os conquistadores portuguezes, como o fizeram os romanos, impozessem aos conquistados a sua linguagem.

because the author of this essay is an Angolan who was raised, educated, and has lived among his people, he has sought to write, if not with perfection but at least with devotion in the language of his native land. this language, despite four hundred years of Portuguese domination, conserves unaltered—which is admirable—the purity of its diction. What might be expected is that which hap-pened to the native tongues of the Iberian Peninsula after the romans invaded and imposed their language on the conquered peoples. (ix)


matta then proceeds to explain what motivated him:

o desejo, porém, de ser prestavel a sua patria e o de contribuir com o seu insig-nificante prestimo a prestar um serviço aos homens de sciencia que se occupam de linguistica, é o que o incitou a coordenar e publicar este trabalho que, apesar de mesquinho, se não servir de muito, ha de necessariamente, preencher uma grande lacuna [. . .].

the desire, however, to be helpful to his homeland and contribute with his service, however modest, to those men of science who dedicate themselves to linguistic study, is what led him to coordinate and publish this work. Al-though modest and limited in scope, this work at least helps to fill a large gap [. . .] (x)

We can easily verify that along with Angolan literature written in Portuguese, Angolan oral literature constitutes a segment that deserves attention. Such being the case, we should proceed with the idea in mind that Angolan literatures con-sists, in fact, of three segments. i.e., oral literature, or orature; literature written in indigenous languages; literature written in Portuguese.

LuSoPHoNE LItErAturES IN PortuGAL’S CurrICuLAr rEForm

For the last several years I have been following the curricular reform that has been taking place in Portugal’s secondary schools. my particular interest lies in the area of Portuguese-language literatures taught in twelfth-grade classes in the General Course of Language and Literature. I can verify that those who have formulated such programs have done so with a certain epistemological caution. Alberto Carvalho, the coordinator, and the other contributors to the Projecto de Programa de Literaturas de Língua Portuguesa (Project of Portuguese-Language Literatures Programs) have pointed out, for example, that lusophone African literatures and brazilian literature “são alheias aos pressupostos de competência em lingua por-tuguesa previstos para a Literatura Portuguesa.” ‘fall outside of the language com-petency presuppositions for students enrolled in Portuguese Literature courses’ (9). they then assert that these literatures distinguish themselves “externamente, em obediência a direrentes pressupostos de temporalidade historiográfica, culturais e genológicas, por exprimirem outras realidades e por representarem espaços terri-toriais próprios” ‘externally, in keeping with diverse presuppositions, some of his-toriographical temporality and cultural in nature or based on genre, by expressing other realities and representing their own territorial space’ (9).

moreover, according to the project organizers, two aspects appear to frustrate the perspective of a useful intercultural dialogue, as it were, among lusophone literatures. In the first place, the listed literary corpus rather poorly represents the diversity of and what makes Angolan literature unique. Next of all, there is the negation of any effort, as the organizers state in their document, with respect to the “teorização de uma estética africana nas áreas nacionais de língua portu-guesa, por não se registar nestes países qualquer movimento cultural de retorno às fontes tradicionais” ‘theorization of an African aesthetic in the national areas of Portuguese language, because in these countries one does not bear witness to any cultural movement seeking to return to traditional sources’ (37).


Even more appropriate with regard to this consideration is the judgment according to which the Portuguese reader of literary works from other lusophone countries indulges in what is akin to translating. Such being the case, the authors of the program consider that “não se espera que os leitores portugueses possam, p.ex., extrair dos textos as significações mais finas que só a identificação com os respectivos contextos permite alcançar” ‘one does not expect that Portuguese readers are capable, for example, of extracting from the texts the most refined meanings that only identifying with the respective contents permits one to attain’ (53). It should also be noted that for reasons having to do with the intercultural perturbing aspects of the reading process can be eliminated if, by means of pro-paeduitics, there is knowledge provided that brings about the contextualization of these literatures. It is thus not sufficient to verify the autonomy of the texts and the sociocultural universes.

the Portuguese organizers of the curricular project hold to a belief in the spe-cificity of Brazilian and lusophone African literatures. These pedagogues conclude their introductory remarks by affirming that “embora todas realizadas na mesma língua, repita-se, possuem historiografias todas distintas umas das outras, assim com respondem a contextos culturais diferentes” ‘although all written in the same language, let us reiterate, they possess historiographies that are distinct one from the other, as do they respond to cultural contexts that are also different’ (37).

the foregoing notwithstanding, beyond the poorly disguised resistance to recognizing the very meaning of what are known as African Literatures, the programmatic ideas lead us to understand the perspective that presides over the project under consideration. And calling attention to what can be termed a “Por-tuguese obsession” is Alfredo margarido, who states in A Lusofonia e os Lusófonos: Novos Mitos Portugueses that “(é) certo que se ensinam literaturas, seja brasileira, sejam as africanas, mas não em nome da autonomia dos criadores e dos países, mas sim em função da ‘língua portuguesa’ ” ‘it is certain that whether brazilian or African these literatures are taught, but not in the name of the authors’ and their countries’ autonomy, but, rather, as a function of the “Portuguese language’ (53). margarido further offers the following pertinent observations:

de maneira geral, entre outros motives, a consciência da escrita traduzida e o nome estrangeiro do Autor acentuam, no ensino das literaturas, a noção de que se lida com uma realidade não nacional, qualidade que no caso das “Literaturas de Língua Portuguesa”se pode encontrar ameaçada.

Generally speaking, among other motives, in the teaching of literature the con-science of the translated written word and the Author’s foreign name accentuate the notion that one has to deal with a non-national reality, a quality which in the case of “Portuguese Language Literatures” may find itself under threat. (20)

the referred-to foreign authorial name has nothing to do with the generality of anthroponyms themselves to the extent that a large number of Angolan authors, for example, bear Portuguese names. on the other hand, to allude to the quality of a “non-national reality,” which, it is worth repeating, in the case of lusophone literatures, which may be under threat, translates an excessively reductive vision for a society that aspires to multiculturalism. A similarly reductive vision contrasts with the presentation of the discipline, since when introduced into the Portuguese


curriculum, to quote once more from the Projecto de Programa de Literatura de Língua Portuguesa,

representa uma decisão de acentuado alcance politico-diplomático na estratégia de manutenção e de aprofundamento de laços que unem Portugal aos restan-tes países de língua portuguesa no espaço da Lusofonia, decisão exemplar de política educativa que numa hipótese optimista, pode desencadear a atitude da reciprocidade.

it represents a decision of accentuated politico-diplomatic reach in the strategy of maintaining and strengthening ties that unite Portugal with the other luso-phone countries, this being an exemplary decision with respect to educative politics that in an optimistic hypothesis can unleash the attitude of reciprocity. (4)

the foregoing statement appears to be in agreement with maria Alzira Seixo’s point of view. In her “o romance da Literatura: Comunicação, Prática e Ficções” (the romance of Literature: Comunication, Practice, and Fictions) she writes:

[A] questão africana necessita de ser encarada,como definição de um espaço coextensivo das nossas práticas culturais e literárias, e,mesmo durante a época pós-colonial, decisiva para o entendimento de duas questões importantes da nossa evolução literária: as perspectivas de trabalho verbal específico que as literaturas africanas em língua portuguesa introduzem na língua-padrão, assim como as suas potencialidades de reconfiguração do cânone literário.

[t]he African question needs to be faced as regards the definition of a co-existing space of our cultural and literary practices, and, even during the postcolonial era, is decisive for the understanding of two important questions about our liter-ary evolutions: the perspective of specific verbal work that lusophone African literatures introduce in the standard language as well as the potentialities of reconfiguration of the literary canon. (120)

A Portuguese scholar, maria A. S. Seixo also intends to look at African litera-tures under the pretext of seeking out Portuguese cultural and literary practices, although she recognizes that the specificities of spoken Portuguese, in Angola, for example, introduce elements into the standard language that justify a re-examina-tion of the canon. What Seixo calls potentialities of reorganization of the literary canon, others, such as Luzia Cortesão and Stephen r. Stoer, in “Cartografando a transnacionalização do Campo Educativo: o Caso Português” (mapping the transnationalization of the Educative Field: the Portuguese Case), understand as having to do with “formas de localismos globalizados” ‘forms of globalized localisms’ (388). they base their understanding on the expression of a possible adopting of Portuguese curricular models. Cortesão and Stoer realize, however, that such adopted curricula comport ethnocentric postures. the framework of such an adoption is what the two researchers designate as a benign multicultura-lism, in which one views “illustrações de livros com personagens negras, a alguns episódios ou situações mais ou menos folclóricos em relação com trajes, tipo de alimentação, danças, etc.” ‘book illustrations depicting black characters and some episodes or more or less folkloric situations with regard to costumes, types of food, dance, etc.’ (369).


LItErArY CANoN, SoCIALIZING FuNCtIoN, ANd CuLturAL PLurALISm

In note 5 at the end of this article appears a statement, relevant to fables, made by a character in Plato’s Republic. According to Karl Popper, the meaning of modern-day affirmations similar to those made by Plato may lead us to accept that that philoso-pher of ancient Greece formulated the world’s first totalitarian program. Playing on elements contained in Plato’s program, Popper, in his A Sociedade Aberta e os seus Inimigos (the open Society and its Enemies), maintains the following views:

É fundamental a existência de censura e duma constante propaganda no sentido de moldar e unificar as actividades intelectuais e o pensamento da classe domi-nante, devendo ser evitadas ou suprimidas quaisquer inovações em matéria de educação, legislação e religião.

Fundamental is the existence of censorship and of a consistent propaganda in molding and unifying the intellectual activities and thinking of the dominant group. What must be avoided or suppressed are any innovations in the areas of education, legislation, and religion. (101–02)

Popper further notes that “[t]em sido ditto, e com razão, que Platão foi o inventor das nossas escolas secundárias e universidades” ‘[i]t has been said, and correctly so, that Plato was the inventor of our secondary schools and universities’ (147).

It is indeed the above-mentioned “totalitarian model” whose strategies govern the instructional systems, the canons, and the school programs. Contrary, however, to what happens in the Western world, where the model originated, the social reproduction in support of the instructional system is not in line with the logic of the kind of cultural reproduction conceived of in Angola. there exists a hiatus between the order of social hierarchies and the predominant cultures that structure the personality of Angola’s populations. The significance of the fore-going assertion can be explained, in agreement with Pierre bourdieu, who writes in his A Economia das Trocas Simbólicas (the Economics of Symbolic Exchanges) that “todo acto de transmissão cultural implica necessariamente na afirmação do valor da cultura transmitida—e paralelamente, a desvalorização implícita ou explícita das outras culturas possíveis” ‘all acts of cultural transmission are implied necessarily in the affirmation of the value of the transmitted culture—and in a parallel manner the implicit or explicit devaluation of other possible cultures’ (218). bourdieu then proceeds to offer this explanation: “Em outros termos, isso significa que todo ensino deve produzir, em grande parte, a necessidade de seu próprio produto e, assim, constituir enquanto valor ou como valor dos valores a própria cuja transmissão lhe cabe” ‘In other words, that means that all instruc-tion must produce, in large measure, the necessity of its very product and, in this way, constitute, while a value or as a value of the values, the very necessity whose transmission falls to it’ (218).

One readily succeeds in identifying what can be termed the first contempo-rary manifestations of the “totalitarian function” of the literary canon, because in it is evidenced a certain ideological configuration of literature. One may well detect here that which, by way of example, is for Harold bloom, as expressed in his The Western Canon, the politicization and ideological defense of the literary canon.


Contrary to that which bourdieu expresses in his second statement, quoted above, bloom states: “the Western Canon does not exist in order to augment pre-existing societal elites. It is there to be read by you and by strangers so that you and those you will never meet can encounter authentic aesthetic power and the authority of what baudelaire (and Erich Auerbach after him) called “aesthetic dignity” (36).

As regards African literature, and especially that by Angolan writers, from a historical point of view, languages of European origins have something of an aura of conjunctural prestige. If these languages are confronted by endogenous literary systems, the problematics of the canon, dealing with an exercise of selec-tion and recollection, immediately raise the issue of cultural decolonisation and a recognition of cultural pluralism. only a process of cultural decolonisation—the latter being an expression we should not fear—can avoid the consecration of a “totalitarian literary canon,” or what might be termed a geographical canon. Such a canon, based on the hegemony of a given language, is certain to result in a kind of linguistic Eurocentrism. As a matter of fact, the glottophagic spectre and Eurocentrism often burst forth. Such eruptions have to do with the persistence of the “hegemony of the homogenesis,” to use Ali mazrui’s term, or what Edward W. Said has designated imperialism whose domains continue to be equally assured in literary expression. one of these domains is that of the neutrality of aesthetic values, whereby it is considered, as Harold bloom would have it, that European and American literatures are superior. the idea of timeless, universal values that hark back to the era of the European enlightenment simply translate the monistic predominance of the canon in the context of the nation-states of the West.

As for how the foregoing applies to Angolan literature, the canon has to be an expression of consecrated pluralism in the manner in which the concept of Angolan literature is constructed. by “Angolan Literature” I reiterate that I consider the latter to be the whole, composed of oral texts, written versions of oral texts in indigenous languages, texts written in Portuguese, produced by Angolan authors with recourse to the techniques of narrative fiction, and of other modes of writing, as long as there can be verified in them a definite aesthetic, critical, or historical literary intention that conveys Angolan cultural elements.6

If the canon does comply with the idea of selectivity, it will, in a similar manner, express the relative validity of the choices of the books included therein. From my own perspective, the literary canon adopted in a country such as Angola should be regulated by a rigorous respect for cultural pluralism. the latter, in so far as Angolan literature is concerned, constitutes an integral component of the patrimony of a country that is multi-ethnic and multilingual, although the major-ity of the population has a common language base (i.e., Portuguese). For this very reason, the literary canon, while an emanation of the nation-state’s cultural func-tion, has to be the result of a loyal concurrence of proposals that reflect the three segments in which Angolan literature is analysed. these three segments are, of course, “orature,” texts composed in indigenous languages, and those written in Portuguese.


tHE tEACHING oF LuSoPHoNE AFrICAN LItErAturES IN AFrICA

Vigilant though we may be in resisting the hegemonic temptations of imposed languages and European and Anglo-American literatures, we face, as we have alluded to in this article, the reality of the existence in African universities of such disciplines as Portuguese language and lusophone literatures. the latter’s course curricula include works by African, brazilian, and Portuguese authors. this real-ity can be illustrated by the frequency of panels on lusophone African literatures in symposiums organized annually by Africanists in Europe and the united States, as well as elsewhere in the Americas, including, of course, brazil. two such organizations are the Association Pour l’Etude des Littératures Africaines (APELA–Association for the Study of African Literatures), headquartered in France, and the uS-based African Literature Association (ALA), to name those in whose symposiums I have been privileged to be a participant. In 1990, I was in dakar to participate in an ALA conference. on a panel devoted to Angolan literature, along with well-known European and American specialists on lusophone Afri-can literatures, there were two Senegalese scholars who constituted the mainstay of the teaching of Portuguese at Cheikh Anta diop university in dakar.

At Nigeria’s university of Ifé, courses on lusophone African literatures are offered as part of the curriculum of the department of modern European Lan-guages. until quite recently, there were no Portuguese courses offered in Nigeria’s secondary schools. thus, the Portuguese courses offered at the university level included Elementary Portuguese, Intermediate Portuguese, and Introduction to Portuguese Composition, as well as Lusophone African Civilization, History of brazilian Literature, and modern Lusophone African Literatures. the recom-mended reading in the latter two courses included works by the brazilian authors jorge Amado, Graciliano ramos, and josé Lins do rego, and the Angolan Ago-stinho Neto, the mozambicans josé Craveirinha and marcelino dos Santos, and the Cape Verdean manuel Lopes. the courses on Nineteenth- and twentieth-Century Portuguese and brazilian Literatures included works by the Portuguese authors Camilo Castelo branco, Almeida Garrett, Eça de Queirós, Fernando Pessoa, and Agostinha bessa Luís, and the brazilians machado de Assis, Castro Alves, ber-nardo Guimarães, and raquel de Queirós. A course on sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century literature included works by the Portuguese authors Luís de Camões, d. Francisco manuel de melo, Sá de miranda, António Vieira barbosa de bocage, António josé da Silva, and Nicolau tolentino, and the brazilians Gre-gório de matos, Caldas barbosa, Santa rita durão, and tomás Antônio Gonzaga. the university of Ifé’s Faculty Arts Handbook 1984–87 also lists Applied Portuguese Linguistics, Portugal’s Literary History, and African Literatures in Portuguese. the latter course provides students with the opportunity to read works by such authors as São tomé e Príncipe’s Costa Alegre, Angola’s Castro Soromenho, Ago-stinho Neto, Viriato da Cruz, mário Pinto de Andrade, Luandino Vieira, and manuel Lima, mozambique’s Craveirinha and Noémia de Sousa, and the Cape Verdean Amílcar Cabral.

It should be noted in passing that in Nigeria, during the 1990s, Portuguese, as well as the literatures written that language, were also offered, and, supposedly, still are taught at the university of Port Harcourt. until quite recently, the person


responsible for the Portuguese language and lusophone literature courses was Professor Wilfred Feuser, who confirmed his involvement in that area when, in 1990, I met with him at the university of Nsukka.

the university of South Africa (uNISA) and the university of Witwatersrand stand out in that southern African country as institutions of higher education at which Portuguese-language courses have long been offered. but the teaching of lusophone literatures has been in language pedagogy. In 2001, however, modern brazilian Literature and Lusophone African Literatures joined with the already existing Portuguese Literature course in the curriculum for the bachelor’s degree at uNISA.

In Senegal, at the university of Cheikh Anta, the teaching of lusophone lit-eratures is similarly dependent on language pedagogy. I am personally acquainted with mallé Kassé, Ahmet Kebé, and mustafa bangoura, professors of Portuguese at Cheikh Anta. With the aid of the university of rennes, in France, these three Senegalese academics have made a concerted effort to draw attention to and regularly participate in international cultural and scholarly events dealing with the Portuguese language and lusophone African literatures.

tHE SCArCItY ANd LACK oF dIStrIbutIoN oF mAtErIALS

The deficient functioning of the publishing industry in CPLP countries, a paucity of teaching materials—specifically up-to-date bibliographies, panoramic studies and monographs, anthologies, and translations—constitute the source of the dif-ficulties that seem to be common with respect to lusophone literatures. And it is an especially crucial problem in the lusophone African countries.

In the 1960s and 1970s, compelled by an international sequence of events and the sociopolitical contexts of the movements of national liberation, the literatures of the then Portuguese colonies in Africa awakened substantial interest on the part of a number of scholars and publishers. Among those scholars in Europe the united States are the Portuguese Alfredo margarido and manuel Ferreira, the German janheinz jahn, the belgians Lilyan Kesteloot and Albert Gérand, the Frenchman jean-michel massa, and the Americans Gerald m. moser and russell G. Hamilton. over the ensuing years since the 1970s the names of other foreign scholars, including brazilians, can be added to the list, as have the universities where they have introduced courses on lusophone African literatures.

Excluding several in Portugal, very few European editorial houses have displayed an interest in publishing lusophone African works, either in the origi-nal or in translation. Among the exceptions, London-based Heinemann comes immediately to mind with regard to African literature in general. Heinemann also has played a pioneering role in issuing English translations of lusophone African works, the first being the Mozambican Luís Bernardo Honwana’s We Killed Mangy-Dog and Other Mozambique Stories, published in 1969. At least a couple of publishing houses in France have also issued translations of lusophone African works.

the interest abroad not withstanding, since the PALoP’s political independ-ence in 1974–75, there does not appear to have been a significant growth with respect to the publication of such instruments of disclosure as bibliographies, anthologies, and translated works that serve to make these literatures more widely accessible and known internationally.


In writing about the low-level availability of lusophone African literature on the international scene, the Portuguese critic Alfredo margarido, writing in 1980, opines that the reasons invoked to justify this virtual exclusion from the francoph-one and anglophone domains can be attributed to the lack of translations of even major lusophone African works. In Estudos sobre Literaturas das Nações Africanas de Língua Portuguesa (Studies on Literatures of the Portuguese-language African Nations) margarido states that this lack of translations places us

perante a dureza do facto colonial onde as histórias das literaturas africanas assumem e prolongam os melefícios do colonialismo clássico. As línguas privi-legiadas, o inglês e o francês, são as das grandes potências coloniais [. . .] o lugar reservado às literaturas africanas de expressão portuguesa reflecte da maneira mais evidente o lugar reservado a Portugal na hierarquia das nações

“desenvol-vidas.”

face to face with the harsh colonial fact whereby the history of African litera-tures assumes and prolongs the malevolence of classical colonialism. English and French are the privileged languages of the former great colonial Powers [. . .]and the place reserved for the African literatures in Portuguese reflects, in the most obvious manner, the place that was reserved for Portugal in the hierarchy of the so-called developed nations. (121)

Even today when we still hear lamentations about the lack of bibliographies and other instruments, our thoughts usually gravitate only around those two world languages. Such an occurrence is so common that it is verifiable not only in Europe but also in the united States, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere. In this regard, Virginia Coulon, a French researcher, in considering the paucity of translations resulting from the unbridgeable frontiers between the francophone, anglophone, and lusophone literatures, the following in “La pénurie d’instruments de travail pour l’enseignement de littératures africaines” (the Scarcity of Work Instruments for the teaching of African Literatures): “Faute d’ouvrages en français, on connait trés mal les littératures africaines de langue anglaise et portuguaise [. . .] à ma connaisance il n’y a aucun ouvrage en français qui leur est consacré” ‘because of the lack of works in French, one is hardly aware of African literature in English and Portuguese [. . .] to my knowledge there is no work in French dedicated to them’ (121).

The reflection of this relative absence of lusophone African literatures in French academia, especially when compared to either Portuguese or brazilian literature, can be observed in the official journal of the Association pour l’Etude des Littératures Africaines (APELA). What becomes especially evident is, in effect, that this almost non-existence needed instruments has resulted in some recently implemented strategies aimed at making lusophone African literature better known internationally. there thus has been a considerable increase in translated works and the distribution of lusophone literature in France. Such an increase is in large measure attributable to the Paris-based branch of the Portuguese Instituto Camões.

Likewise worthy of mention is the Librárie Lusophone (Lusophone book-store), located in the Parisian French Quarter. It appears to be, however, the only bookstore in Paris, and perhaps all of France, that specializes in works by authors


of the Portuguese-speaking world. these very few bookstores in France as well as elsewhere in Europe and in North America make it even more difficult for prospective readers to have access to Lusophone African works in translation.

A StrAtEGY For tHE dISSEmINAtIoN oF LuSoPHoNE LItErAturES

Is it possible to speak of a strategy when the principal goal is to disseminate and thus make lusophone literatures more widely known? the core of the response to this question lies exactly in the existence of the Community of Portuguese-language Countries (CPLP). Proof of the foregoing assertion is found in the proceedings, resolutions, and declarations of the CPLP’s various agencies. As to what “strategy” refers to we record here a statement attributable to A. C. Couto and quoted in António Horta Fernandes’ and António Paulo duarte’s Portugal e Equilíbrio Peninsular (Portugal and Peninsular Equilibrium):

A ciência e a arte de desenvolver e utilizar as forças morais e materiais de uma unidade política ou coligação a fim de se atingirem objectivos políticos que suscitam, ou podem suscitar, a hostilidade (e exclusivamente a hostilidade) de uma outra vontade política.

the science and the art of developing and utilizing the moral and material forces of a political unity or alliance in order to reach political objectives that bring about, or can bring about, the hostility (and exclusively the hostility) of some other political inclination. (97)

our understanding of “strategy” in this context may also be in line with this definition adopted in Brazil by the Escola Superior de Guerra (Superior School of War): “(A) arte de preparar e aplicar o poder—na paz e na guerra—para conquistar e preservar objectivos, superando obstáculos de toda ordem” ‘the arte of prepar-ing and applying power—in peace and war—to conquer and preserve objectives, overcoming all obstacles.’

the CPLP indeed possesses a strategic vision. We are aware, of course, of how important this vision has been in the twentieth century, and continues to be in the early twenty-first. There exist few doubts as to the existence of “cultural elites,” the products of whose activities, particularly of the CPLP member states’ literary output, are called on to play important roles.

In assessing Portugal’s entry into the context of European equilibrium, António Horta Fernandes and António Paulo duarte, make the following observations, in the above-cited Portugal e Equilíbrio Peninsular:

A importância da cultura como instrumento do poder arescem as preocupações que os Estados têm como afirmação das suas culturas. De facto, esta afirmação cultural tem efeitos potencializadores na capacidade de intervenção do Estado no mundo, quer apoiando a construção de imagens positivas a seu respeito, quer facilitando a penetração em áreas de interesse estratégico.

the importance of culture as an instrument of power increases each CPLP country’s concerns in attempting to affirm its own individual culture. In fact, cultural affirmation has power-giving effects with respect to the capacity of of


a country’s intervention in the world. the latter applies whether it is a question of supporting the construction of positive images or whether it is a matter of facilitating the penetration into areas of strategic interest. (97)

In view of the distinct borders that separate the Instituto Internacional da Língua Portuguesa (IILP–International Institute of the Portuguese Language) and the Instituto Camões (Camões Institute), I firmly believe that there is a fundamen-tal need to establish a base of complementarity that might help to avoid “unilater-alism” on the part of the individual member states. I am in agreement with jorge Couto, former president of Portugal’s Camões Institute, who considers the latter’s and the ILLP’s existence not to be an impediment at the level of each member state. As regards “multilateralism” these two institutes well might compete in certain areas of initiative. Apropos of areas of initiatives jorge Couto, in an article appearing on the internet, lists the following:

[A] doação de terminologias científicas e tecnológicas e a criação de centros nacionais de terminologia que permitam unificadamente recolher e tratar as contribuições provenientes de outros sistemas lingüísticos [. . . ], a ampliação de centros nacionais de terminologia [. . .] , a criação de bancos de dados [. . .] , a rede de programas de investigação que associem estreitamente as universidades dos países lusófonos tendentes a elaborar atlas lingüísticos, dicionários etimo-lógicos edicionários multilíngües e, ainda, a desenvolver técnicas de tradução automáticas.

The donating of scientific and technological terminologies and the creation of national centers of terminology that together may facilitate the collecting and handling of contributions from other linguistic systems [. . .] , the amplifica-tion of national terminology centers [. . .] , the creation of data banks [. . . ], the network of research programs that closely join with universities in the luso-phone countries for the purpose of producing linguistic atlases, etymological and multi-lingual dictionaries, and, moreover, the development of automatic translation practices.

With regard to complementary initiatives, CPLP member states seek to guard against hegemonic temptations, an issue about which Adriano moreira holds forth in Teoria das Relações Internacionais (theory of International relations):

Se queremos dignificar, fortalecer, expandir a lingua portuguesa e os valores e objectivos internacionais que transporta, entre povos que oficialmente a adop-tam, devemos corresponder com o interesse, a dignificação, o aprofundamento do saber das línguas desses povos que acrescentam o património próprio com a nossa contribuição, que enriquecem o nosso património aprofundamos a capacidade de entender.

If we wish to dignify, strengthen, and expand the use of the Portuguese lan-guage and the values and international objectives it transports among peoples who officially adopt it, then we must correspond with the interest, dignity, and a deepening of our knowledge of the languages of those groups of people who increase their very patrimony with our contribution and who enrich our pat-rimony when they cause the capacity for understanding to be more profound. (viii)


the so-called hegemonic temptation, as described by moreira, seems to reduce Portugal’s relationship with Angola to a sole perspective. According to this per-spective Angola is limited to upgrading the patrimony itself by virtue of Portugal’s language contribution.

We recognize, of course, the importance of the initiatives by at least some citizens of the member countries in the formulation of instruments within the framework of such an organization as the CPLP. this recognition notwithstand-ing, what turns out to be an ill-omened indicator is the fact that during the third conference of the CPLP ministers of education, held in june of 2000, with regard to the subject of literature, which could not be discussed without the presence of representatives of the respective countries. At that meeting the leading roles for drawing up a document on the presence of literary studies in the respective educa-tion systems were assigned to specialists from Portugal and brazil. the participa-tion of other representatives would only take place during the fourth conference. my sense is that with respect to the compilation of materials having to do with culture, representative groups with equal status ought to be involved.

the International Institute of the Portuguese Language being, however, an arm of the CPLP, and the Camões Institute being an agency of the Portuguese government, in truth cause the matter of participation to be even more complex. It thus becomes a rather simple matter to give consistency to the idea by which among lusophone literatures (literary systems) and Portuguese (language system) there exists no possibility of confusion. Consequently, the satisfaction derived from seminars and colloquia is not sufficient. those responsible need to go beyond such gatherings and call for a culture that is averse to inertia in the decision mak-ing process. my intention in putting forth this such reasoning is to interpellate the agents of the institutions that shape the literary systems of the CPLP nations. these agents shall be called upon to execute the strategic vision and programmatic lines that shape such literary systems.

Fernando Cristóvão, a professor from Portugal and former director of the Lisbon-based Instituto de Cultura e Língua Portuguesa (ICALP–Institute of Por-tuguese Culture and Language), offers as an example that of the brazilian studies programs established in several of his country’s universities. Although the intro-duction of the first of such programs dates back more than fifty years, it is verifi-able that today there is still relatively little reciprocal knowledge of the respective literatures in brazil and Portugal.

Cristóvão’s observations have led him to recommend the basic criterion of the reciprocity proportioned for all Portuguese-language literatures. For that Por-tuguese professor, and I paraphrase his statements offered, in 1985, at a meeting of professors of Portuguese-language literatures: A worthy presence of brazilian and lusophone African literatures in Portugal ought to correspond to an equally worthy presence of Portuguese literature in the new lusophone nations in Africa as well as in brazil.

It is, of course, a rather simple task to identify the reasons that legitimate parity and reciprocity as worthwhile principles. And it behoves us not to lose sight of the force of history and of social and collective representations. to para-phrase Edward Said’s assertion in Culture and Imperialism, we live in a world that is not only based on merchandise but also on representations whose production,


distribution, history, and interpretation constitute culture’s raw material (104). the foregoing is especially evident in Portuguese literature, which abounds with diverse works replete with images of the imperial vision and colonialism, enhanc-ing those images that deny the “African other” (i.e., Angolan, Cape Verdean, Guinean, mozambican, and São tomean). In other words, surviving colonialism throughout its several sequels, the phantoms that resist extinction continue to haunt the writers, researchers, and academics who inhabit the CPLP. one of these phantoms is the so-called theory of crioulidade (creoleness or creole nativism) delineated at the end of the decade of 1960 by mário António Fernando de oliveira, the well-known Angolan poet and essayist. In 1968, mário António’s (the name by which he is commonly known) Luanda,“Ilha” Crioula (Luanda, Creole Island), a collection of essays, was published.7 In present-day Portugal, many still embrace the theory of “creoleness,” among them being josé Eduardo Agualusa, author of a number of works of fiction, including the prize-winning novel Nação Crioula: A Correspondência Secreta de Fradique Mendes (Creole Nation: the Secret Correspond-ence of Fradique mendes), published in 1997, and the afore-mentioned university professor josé Carlos Venâncio, both of whom are Angolans.8 the manner in which the theory of creoleness is divulged does not cease to be a manifestation of vehemence in that it emanates from the myth of the mestiço (person of mixed race), a theory put forth by Gilberto Freyre, the brazilian ethnographer who founded Lusotropicalism. Curiously, Adriano moreira, a close friend of the late brazil-ian intellectual, stated in a communication he presented in 1993, that “o mito do mestiço é um mito que não está vencido” ‘the mixed-race myth is a myth not yet vanquished’ (77).

Adriano moreira does cast into doubt what he terms the virtuous behavior that in several of his publications Gilberto Freyre attributes to the Portuguese, whom the brazilian ethnologist portrays as being very accepting of miscegenation. moreira addresses the matter in these terms:

Há em todo o caso, a meu ver, alguns aspectos novos que devem ser tomados em consideração antes de tentar transpor acriticamente para a situação actual estes modelos de comportamento que, volto a insistir, seriam os carecterísti-cos da acção portuguesa, com alguns desvios sim, mas dando origem a essas socie-dades multiraciais, multiculturais, miscegenadas.

In any case, to my way of thinking there are some new aspects that must be taken into consideration before attempting, acritically, to transpose to the cur-rent those models of behavior that, I again insist, would characterize acts on the part of the Portuguese, with, of course, some deviations, but giving origin to those multiracial, multicultural, miscegenated societies. (79)

In this regard, it is worth identifying the political reasons that underlie that construct. Adriano moreira does indeed speak to it in the following terms:

[A] detenção do poder político tem a maior das importâncias na evolução do contacto entre etnias . . . o colonizador, embora numericamente seja uma mino-ria, porque constitui sempre um grupo inferior ao da população local, do ponto de vista polílitico ele constitui efectivamente uma maioria. E é muito diferente exercitar uma concepção de relações entre grupos étnicos exercendo o poder


político ou exercitar essa concepção não tendo o poder político. os portugueses passaram pela experiência de o estatuto de maioria política se transformar um estatuto de minoria cultural. A experiência, como sabem, não foi das melhores [. . .].

[t]he retention of political power is of the greatest importance in the evolution of contacts among ethnicities [. . .]. the colonizers, although numerically in the minority, vastly outnumbered by the native population, from the political point of view effectively constitute a majority. And it is quite different to put into effect a concept of relationships among ethnic groups exercising political power or effecting that concept without being in a position of power. the Portuguese had the experience of the political majority statute becoming transformed in the cultural minority statute. As they can attest to, it was not the best of experiences. (“Comunicação” 80)

For the above-stated reasons, the strategies to be implemented by the CPLP and, in particular, the promulgation of lusophone literature, should be based on an epistemological vigilance and obey a multilateral cultural policy emanating from a solid foundation of common knowledge as regards the realities of the member nation-states, without hegemonies and Eurocentric hierarchies, or hierarchies of any type. to this end, that which should be taken into account is the cultural politics of each of the eight countries in the context of the geo-political regions in which they are integrated. the foregoing is necessary because outside the CPLP sphere are many francophone and anglophone countries.

CoNCLuSIoN

one of the strategic imperatives, which at the same time is a challenge to the CPLP’s image, has to be the distancing of the spectre of postcolonial theory, much in vogue among academics in Anglophone countries such as the united States and Great britain. this imperative is especially true with respect to the relationships established between the space marked out by the history of colonialism and its legacies.

the misgivings concerning “postcolonial” derive in part from this being a concept that has as its referent the colonial world fashioned by Europeans. the

“postcolonial” necessarily bears the indelible marks of the “colonial.” these marks are conveyed from the center of the former colonial empire. At this juncture we cite the following pertinent observations published in Homi K. babba’s O Local da Cultura:

(As) perspetivas pós-coloniais emergem do testemunho colonial dos países do terceiro mundo e dos discursos das “minorias”dentro das divisões geopolíticas de Leste e oeste, Norte e Sul. Elas intervêm naqueles discursos ideológicos da modernidade que tentam dar uma “normalidade” hegemónica ao desenvol-vimento irregular e às histórias diferenciadas de nações, raças, comunidade, povos. (239)

Postcolonial perspectives emerge from the colonial testimony of third World countries and from the discourses of the “minorities” within the geo-political divisions of East and West, North and South. these divisions intervene in those


ideological discourses of the modernity that seek to lend a hegemonic “normal-ity” to the irregular development and to the differentiated histories of nations, races, communities, peoples. (The Location of Culture)

“Postcoloniality, “a legacy of imperialism, is indeed a case of the deconstructive. the foregoing is not, however, the opinion of Kwame Gyekye, who, in “Philosophy, Culture, and technology in the Postcolonial,” writes: “the postcolonial era in Africa is the era that follows the regaining of the political independence of African states from European colonial powers.”(25)

As regards literature, the postcolonial spectre hovers on the horizon through-out the representations of that historically unequal relationship with its propensity to produce hegemonies. Without being wary of the criterion of proportional reci-procity the principle of constituting groups of equal status, such representations can lead to hegemonic temptations, if one gives one’s attentions exclusively to the Portuguese language. this exclusivity in no way will contribute, with respect to principles, to the building of a common platform for all members of the CPLP.

the diffusion of lusophone literatures imposes an equation composed of the following elements: geographical space; texts, language; knowledge. In conclusion, suffice to state that underlying all of these elements is the idea that the success of the diffusion, greater exposure, and instruction of these literatures outside of the CPLP will depend in large measure on the amount of knowledge produced in each of the eight countries, and their capability of exporting the same. —trans. by R.G. Hamilton

NotES 1. on 15 july 1998, the resolution on the Introduction of the Introduction of the disciplines of History and Literature was put on the table. the respective ministries of Education reaffirmed this recommendation at their third conference, held on 20 june 2000. the objective was to reaffirm the necessity of integrating the subject matter of literature and history into the curricular programs of the member states of the CPLP as well as East timor, which at the time was a part of Indonesia, but which on 20 may 2002 became an independent nation whose official language is Portuguese. the following are the resolution’s goals: the observance of principles related to the culture of peace, the safeguarding of Identity, and respect for human rights. the inclusion of aspects to the culture of each of the member countries. A technical staff, coordinated by brazil, in collaboration with the Executive Secretariat of the CPLP, for the purpose of enriching the document elaborated by spe-cialists from Portugal and brazil, ensuring the presence of literature in the teaching systems with the participation of the other CPLP countries as the date of the Fourth Conference approaches. the elaboration of a chronogram of activities for the above-cited initiatives. to promote a meeting of specialists in history from each of the countries. Said meeting is to be organized by Portugal prior to the Fourth Conference. to encourage the CPLP dimension in the area of education through the presence of this component on the several levels of instruction. 2. Also worthy of attention in this regard is that the reforms proposed in Por-tugal by no means have been unanimously accepted. It thus should be noted that, for example, a number of teachers of Portuguese, in Portugal, agree with the following assertion recorded in Parecer sobre a Revisão Curricular do Ensino Secundário (opinions


on the Curricular revision of Secondary Education): “Não é claro qual será o papel do texto literário, ou da Literatura, nos programas de Língua Portuguesa. Quanto aos pro-gramas das disciplinas de Literatura Portuguesa e Literaturas de Língua Portuguesa, espera-se que eles não venham a revelar-se Programas de História da Literatura” ‘It is not yet clear what the role of the literary text, or of Literature, will be in the Portuguese-Language programs. As for the programs of the disciplines of Portuguese Literature and Portuguese-Language Literatures, it is hoped that they do not come to be History of Literature Programs’ (3). 3. See the following publications: Uma Perspectiva Etnológica da Literatura Ango-lana (An Ethnological Perspective of Angolan Literature) and Colonialismo, Antropologia e Lusofonias (Colonialism, Anthropology, and Lusophonias), by josé Carlos Venâncio; A Negritude Africana de Língua Portuguesa (Portuguese-Language African Negritude), by Pires Laranjeira. 4. While composing the present article I received word of the following relevant publication: Outros Horizontes: Língua Portuguesa-10a. Classe (other Horizons: Portu-guese Language-10th Grade). the manual is a selective compilation by authors with pedagogical experience and will be used for language instruction in Angola and the other PALoP. 5. In Plato’s Republic one of the characters makes the following assertions: “We must immediately begin by being vigilant as regards the authored fables and by select-ing those that are good, while proscribing those that are not. We shall persuade moth-ers and nursemaids to read the selected fables to children so as to mold the latters’ souls with much more care than give to their bodies with our hands. those fables that are now being told should be rejected [. . .]. by means of the long fables we shall value the short ones. It is thus necessary that the source be the same that the long and the short have the same power” (87–88—translated from the Portuguese by r. G. Hamilton) 6. In my Apologia de Kalitangi: Ensaios e Cultura I make further observations on what constitutes Angolan literature. 7. mário António, in his Luanda, “Ilha” Crioula (Luanda, Creole “Island”), publi-shed in 1968, establishes a theory of Angolan, specifically Luandan, “creoleness.” 8. Also see jill r. dias’s “uma Questão de Identidade: respostas intelectuais às trans-formações Económicas no Seio da Elite Crioula da Angola Portuguesa entre 1870 e 1930” (A Question of Identity: Intellectual responses to Economic transformations at the Core of the Creole Elite of Portuguese Angola between 1870 and 1930).

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Kandjimbo, Angolan Literature & Incipient Canon.pdf