Speaking the Postcolonial Nation: Interviews with Writers from Angola and Mozambique

This volume brings together interviews on the topic of the postcolonial nation and its narrations with prominent writers from Angola and Mozambique. The interviewees offer personal insights into the history of post-independence Angola and Mozambique and into the role of the intellectual elite in the complex processes of deconstructing colonial heritage and (re)constructing national identity in a multinational or multiethnic state. Their testimonies provide a parallel narrative that complements the many fictional narrators found in Angolan and Mozambican novels, short stories and poems. The authors interviewed in the book are Luandino Vieira, Ana Paula Tavares, Boaventura Cardoso, Jos Eduardo Agualusa, Ondjaki and Pepetela from Angola; and Jo o Paulo Borges Coelho, Marcelo Panguana, Mia Couto, Paulina Chiziane, Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa and Lu s Carlos Patraquim from Mozambique.

Ana Mafalda Leite is professor of African literature at the University of Lisbon. Her areas of research include Mozambican literature, African cultures and literatures in the Portuguese language, oral literature and postcolonial studies. Her recent publications include Oralidades & Escritas Pós-Coloniais (2012).
Sheila Khan is a researcher at the Centre for Research in Social Sciences at the University of Minho. Her publications include The Lusotropical Tempest: Postcolonial Debates in Portuguese (2012) and Imigrantes Africanos Moçambicanos: Narrativa de Imigração e de Identidade e Estratégias de Aculturação em Portugal e na Inglaterra (2009).
Jessica Falconi is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra and lectures in Portuguese literature at the University of Naples ’L’Orientale’. Her doctoral thesis was published in Italy under the title of Utopia e conflittualità Ilha de Moçambique nella poesia mozambicana contemporanea (2008).
Kamila Krakowska is working towards her doctorate in Brazilian and Mozambican literature at the University of Coimbra, having previously studied at the University of Wroclaw. She has published articles on national identity in the work of Mário de Andrade and Mia Couto.