REPRESENTATIONS OF POWER IN MAYOMBE: “MEN WILL BE PRISONERS OF THE STRUCTURES THEY WILL HAVE CREATED”
Revista Brasileira de Estudos Africanos
REPRESENTATIONS OF POWER IN MAYOMBE: “MEN WILL BE PRISONERS OF THE STRUCTURES THEY WILL HAVE CREATED”
Autor Correspondente: Carolina Bezerra Machado | [email protected]
Palavras-chave: Pepetela; Angola; Mayombe.
Resumos Cadastrados
Resumo Inglês:
After the independence of Angola in 1975, a political structure was consolidated in which the state/MPLA became the main means for the distribution of benefits and privileges, contributing to the strengthening of an authoritarian and patrimonial policy. Therefore, this article aims to start from the novel Mayombe (1980), by the Angolan writer Pepetela, to analyze the political process in Angola in its contemporaneity. It is understood that the power structures that existed in Angola after independence, appear already drawn in this novel, still woven in the guerrillas. In the same way, there are debates about the nation and identity propagated in the midst of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). It is assumed that the contradictions, ambivalences, and accommodation of interests present between Angolan society and the state were already being structured internally even before independence.
