Voices from the Past: Bantu Ancestry and Oral Tradition in the Short Fictional Works of José Luandino Vieira, Arnaldo Santos and Ana Paula Tavares

A paper by Vincenzo Cammarata (King's) and Respondent Katharina Oke (History, King's)

In this talk followed by Q&A, Vincenzo Cammarata (King's) will delve into the works of José Luandino Vieira, Arnaldo Santos and Ana Paula Tavares. He will focus on how the evocation and reinterpretation of the ancestral oral tradition is fundamental to understand how language and ideology go hand in hand, in a constant effort to create new messages, discuss the tensions of a divided society and redefine the complexities of the multicultural Angolan identity. Through an analysis of a selection of their short pieces (or estórias and crónicas, as they are called by these authors), Cammarata will focus on how the use of words coming from the Bantu languages and linked to the legacy left by the autochthonous oral tradition are related to processes of linguistic and literary decolonisation in Angola. In detail, this talk will analyse how the elements deriving from the traditional oral forms of narration called missosso and maka appear in the written short stories of these three writers.

This event is free and open to all. Registration is not required.