Alegory and testimonial in ‘Muana Puó’ (1969), novel by Pepetela

• Autor(a) principal: Salgueiro, Wilberth
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Abril (Niterói)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.uff.br/revistaabril/article/view/29677
• topic: Pepetela; Muana Puó; witness; Theodor Adorno. Angolan Literature; Pepetela. Muana Puó; testemunho; Theodor Ador¬no; literatura angolana

Muana Puó was the first novel written by Pepetela. It was written in 1969 but its publication was made only in 1978. Its title refers to a tchokuê mask that symbolizes the rite of passage to adulthood, and that worked as a mot­to, so the Angolan writer could construct an allegory based on the fight between crows and bats as oppressors and oppressed as well. In a 1987’s article about this narrative, I declared that “to adopt as justification the position of oppressed, to explain the use of the language treatment, en­gaged and even leafleted, is unbearable”. In 2012, twenty-five years later, I reread the novel under the prism of the witness, reevaluating the relations between ethics and aesthetics, having as support the outcomes provided by Adorno in “O que significa elaborar o passado” (1959) and the analysis of Marcelo Caetano (“O enigma de Muana Puó”, 2004) and Laura Padilha (“A força de um olhar a partir do Sul”, 2009).