Memory and Trajectory: Crónica in the Portuguese-Speaking World

• Autor(a) principal: Trindade, Alice
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/29359
• topic: Angola; Crónica; Global South; Portuguese Language; Ernesto Lara Filho; Luís Fernando.

Literary journalism is a genre that narrates verifiable events using techniques and strategies that are culturally meaningful to their reading public(s). This cultural-specific approach in form and content is visible in Portuguese language texts that follow the model of crónica. Following a century-old tradition, crónica has evolved in at least three phases: medieval and crónicas of the East Indies; late nineteenth- to early twentieth century, written journalism; and the late twentieth- to early twenty-first century shift to a variety of platforms that include written and other than written. This study narrows focuses on crónicas written by two Angolan journalists, Ernesto Lara Filho and Luís Fernando, who, despite working decades apart, clearly demonstrate how literary journalism adapts to changing political, social, and economic circumstances. While Angola became independent in their lifetimes, Lara Filho’s texts are pre-independence war, and Luís Fernando’s are post-independence and post-civil wars. Their narratives show that the authors and their characters alike demonstrate understanding, denial, acceptance, and rejection as the events unfold. Lara Filho, a midtwentieth-century Angolan journalist of European descent, tries to navigate his divided allegiance between his home country and distant Portuguese cities. Fernando, an Angolan who experiences his country’s independence as a youth, fosters other influences he has acquired in Latin America. This study aims to show the path from memory texts to crónicas that depict current event trajectories. Angolan crónicas in the present show an African reality defined by African, not European, characters and life styles: the genre may be global, but the characters, situations, and writers’ tone are local, and proud to be so.