The aim of this essay is to compare two novels which could be, due to their thematic and ideology, considered postcolonial: a novel by António Lobo Antunes (Comissão das Lágrimas, 2011) and a novel by José Eduardo Agualusa (Estação das Chuvas, 1995). The two novels focus on the Angolan post-independence period, pointing out the problems of power and identity. Based on a relation between history and fiction (H. White, L. Doležel etc.), our text pretends to show how the literary representation reflects, in a dystopic view, emotional stress and trauma which could not be expressed in a supposedly objective and factual discourse.
Portuguese novel; Angolan novel; history and fiction; post-colonialism; violence and trauma
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