This study analyses the novel O último voo do flamingo (2005), by the Mozambican author Mia Couto, relating the characterization of the translator-narrator to the mystical milieu wherein he is inserted. Therefore, we identify how both translator and translation are characterized, articulated, and developed during the narrative. Results evince the degree of inter-dependence established between language and culture, endorsing a parallel between “speech” and “being”.

É com grande satisfação que a comissão editorial da Revista Mulemba torna pública sua edição 14.2, cujo objetivo principal é discutir as interseções existentes entre os domínios da oralidade e o da escrita. Já amplamente debatido ao longo da história dos estudos literários africanos, tal diálogo encontra, agora, uma nova possibilidade de apreciação, adensada tanto por novas perspectivas teóricas quanto pela escolha dos corpus que compõem os artigos de nossa revista. Ao abordarmos “A presença das culturas orais nas literaturas africanas de língua portuguesa”, reafirmamos nossa aposta por relevantes discussões que fomentem o estudo daquilo que é culturalmente produzido em Angola, Moçambique, Cabo Verde, São Tomé e Príncipe e Guiné-Bissau.

The article discusses some theoretical views on the concept of orality, highlighting the meanings attributed to the terms orature and oraliture. From this discussion, we also consider the use that different African writers give to orality, trying to analyze texts of these writers where we can observe the appropriation of speech and oral chants, as well as other forms of mediation between voice and lyrics produced by African literary proposals in the Portuguese language.

The aim of this paper is to outline a critical reflection regarding the relationship between writing and orality in Lusophone African Literatures, taking as starting point the literary work of Mia Couto and counterpointing it with the literary project of other authors form Lusophone African Literatures. The reflection developed aims at underlining the plurality of critical and aesthetic understandings that define the relationship between the oral and the written, the conceptual constellations and the critical developments that the tension between writing and orality determines for the emergence of theoretical frameworks within the field of African Literary criticism.

This paper is an attempt to discuss “oraliture” as an effective way to instigate intercultural dialogues between Brazil and Mozambique. Such considerations are linked to the reinvention of orality as an element traditionally intrinsic to the African cultures. Our reflections were prompted from the reading of oral tradition tales, originating in the two countries above, involving high school students in a public school, as the elementary procedure for compliance with Law 10,639 / 2003, which calls for the teaching of African and Afro-Brazilian culture in basic education. The tales “Porque o negro é preto” and “As mãos dos pretos” deal with the same issue: racism. Although it seems to be an old discussion, this issue still provokes controversial positions, as noted in our class of second year of high school. Our considerations are anchored in Leite (2012), Freitas, (2010), Nunes (2009), Abdallah-Preitceille (2002), Munanga (2005), among others that support our study. This action research is of qualitative and quantitative nature, for it seeks to identify factors that determine behaviors, most likely underlying the lives of students as an important part of today’s society. The results show that in this public school the Federal Law is not met, reflecting that there is still a need to discuss the African literature or culture, not basic education.

The aim of this article is to introduce a study about the strong presence of the orality in Niketche:a history of the stories of the female characters in this novel.This stories are linked to the mold of a patriarchal society whose values are questioned through the integration of beliefs, songs and spells involving diverse culture of these women.These elements are presented in the novel as allied of these whomen, whom, through the multiple voices expressed by the literary writing, represent their reaction and empowerment, especially the act of search of autonomy and significance as a historical subject. Some of bibliographic support that helped us in this article were: Leite (1998 ), Chabal (1994), Candido (2002), Bhabha (2007), Walter (2003) among others.

Ventos do apocalipse, by Paulina Chiziane, deals with the Mozambican civil war. After the independence of Mozambique, the party-state Frelimo adopted a government of socialist orientation, reflecting an organizational and European political apparatus. It turned out that the old local leaders, dissatisfied with the loss of power and the neglect of traditions, took advantage of the unpreparedness of Frelimo to govern the local communities, and organized themselves around the Renamo party, worsening the social crisis that followed independence. The confrontation between Frelimo’s national project and Renamo’s traditional leaders outlines an apocalyptic scene in the novel. Chiziane discusses the role and the place of tradition in the context of creating a national identity which downplayed the political, economic and cultural legacy.

Resenha do livro: MANZANO. Juan Francisco. A autobiografia do poeta-escravo. Organização, tradução e notas de Alex Castro. São Paulo: Hedra, 2015. 223p.

In order to propose an intensive reading throughout the poetic of Conceição Lima and pursue the subtle marks of identity, memory, affection and hometown reconstruction or the return to the original place or even the affection place where Lima wanders, it is vital to travel through the home of herself, exactly through the poetic of the piece O útero da casa (2004); since in A dolorosa raiz do micondó (2008) the sense of identity and the search for the Africanity - not only for São Tome and Príncipe - has been widened towards a more collective than intimate, more African than from San Tome, and in O país de Akendenguê (2011) this poetess sings her relationship with Africa and the people who were born from their encounter with Arts, friends, affective and political references and, above all, she puts into verses/songs her musical reference, the Gabonese Pierre Akendenguê. Her first work - although not the poetess’s first literary manifestation -, is taken as the starting point: a reunion of poetry that is a type of intimate account of the parturition of the Nation and also of the Personalities hovering over the land and their mythical references.

Resenha do livro: PEPETELA. Se o passado não tivesse asas. Lisboa: Dom Quixote, 2016. 383p.

This article aims to analyze how the novel A varanda do frangipani, by Mia Couto, deconstructs the “enigma novels” to make a critical denunciation of the hegemony of Eurocentric mentality. For this, we will use, as comparison object, the short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, by Edgar Allan Poe, considered by literary critics as the first published police narrative.

Resenha do livro: KHAN, Sheila. Portugal a lápis de cor: a sul de uma pós-colonialidade. Coimbra: Almedina, 2015. 133p.

This article aims to analyze the dialogue between Sarnau and Mwando, central characters of the novel Balada de amor ao vento, by the Mozambican writer Paulina Chiziane. The dialogue is led by the narrator Sarnau, which at all narrative times develops a performance of a storyteller. The presence of orality in this narrative proceeds by the poetic cycles that move the marks of orality in the text’s tissue in screen.

This article discusses, from the perspective of Comparative Literature, the relevance of two aesthetic and political projects – by Manoel de Barros and by Mia Couto – and their motivations concerning the hybrid construction of speeches from orality and writing.

This text aims to investigate the short-stories by Odete Semedo whose construction is founded in the recreation if oral tradition if Guinee Bissau, as well its mechanisms if simulation if oral tradition in writing. For this, we will revisit the concept if"orature": by Lambert-Felix Prudent.

The composition process of A varanda do frangipani, Um rio chamado tempo, uma casa chamada terra and O outro pé da sereia, by Mia Couto, is linked to the mobility of narrative structure and language. Reflecting on this strategy, this article proposes to analyze the orality amalgamated to writing. We will observe the ways of telling that displaying in the three novels, moving through the construction mechanisms of the narratives; with emphasis on the insertion of a story into another, we will demonstrate that, in these novels, everything is on the move.