Memória, guerra e conflitos: o discurso colonial nos contos de Luís Bernardo Honwana e Mia Couto

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to identify the ways in which colonial discourse is represented in short stories by Mozambican writers, specifically Luís Bernardo Honwana in We killed the nasty dog (1964) and Mia Couto in Evening Voices (1987). The work is based on the assumption that the colonial discourse has the purpose of justifying colonization, but is presented in Mozambican literary creations created in the period of the colonial war, post-independence and in the midst of the civil war, when the feeling of resistance and colonial criticism was more expressive. The general aim of the research is to investigate and identify the ways in which the colonial discourse is represented in the short stories of the two Mozambican writers, while the specific objectives involve identifying the historical, social and political context through the fragments of the short stories and dialoguing about the perpetuation of the colonial discourse in resistance literature. The theoretical basis includes authors such as Stuart Hall (2016); Pierre Bourdieu (1989); Homi K. Bhabha (1996); Paul Ricouer (2007); Nazir Hamed Can (2020); Albert Memmi (2007) and Francisco Noa (1999), among others. The methodology is based on a qualitative approach, with an interpretative analytical reading of the short stories by Mozambican writers. The study seeks to show the complexity of the literary creations of Mozambican writers and to point out the forms of representation of colonial discourse in Mozambican literature by Mozambican writers.