Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T12:39:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1263307 bytes, checksum: dc7a6e9fcbbcc3e660a4db38142de58e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-03-11 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The present work, result of our incursion through Mia Couto s work, discusses the manifestations of orality, in riddles and proverbs, and death in the novel Under The Frangipani, contributing as key elements to the preservation of African memory and traditions. For this research we rely on several authors, we quote some such as Maurice Halbwachs (2009), Henri Bergson (2006), Hampatê Bâ (1983) and Andre Jolles, they perform relevant studies about memory, orality and forms that compose them. Besides those authors, we researched scholars like Frantz Fanon (2008), Aimé Césaire (1978) and Homi Bhabha (2007) in order to delve into the causes and consequences generated by colonialism and postcolonialism. About Mozambique's history, the colonial and civil wars, we based our study on Peter Fry (2001) and José Luis Gourds (2009), because it was during such events, that the Portuguese-speaking African literatures, especially in Mozambique, assumed defining characteristics. It is from this background that the author Mia Couto weaves his narratives and confirms the use of literature as an instrument of identity, memory and tradition of his country. / O presente trabalho, fruto de nossas incursões pela obra de Mia Couto, aborda as manifestações da oralidade, nas adivinhas e provérbios, além da relação diferenciada que as personagens estabelecem com a morte no romance A varanda do frangipani. Para esta pesquisa nos apoiamos em Maurice Halbwachs (2009), Henri Bergson (2006) Hampatê Bâ (1983) e André Jolles, autores que desenvolveram estudos relevantes acerca da memória, da oralidade e das formas que as compõem. Utilizamos também os teóricos Frantz Fanon (2008), Aimé Césaire (1978 e Homi Bhabha (2007) a fim de nos aprofundarmos nas causas e consequências geradas pelo colonialismo e o póscolonialismo. Sobre a história de Moçambique, as guerras colonial e civil, nos baseamos em Peter Fry (2001) e José Luis Cabaço (2009), pois foi durante tais acontecimentos que as literaturas africanas de língua portuguesa, sobretudo em Moçambique, assumiram características definidoras. É a partir desse cenário que o autor Mia Couto tece suas narrativas e contribui para que a literatura, naquele país, sirva como instrumento de identidade, memória e tradição

This research provides an analytical reading of five southern African war novels, in a transnational study of the experience of war as represented by the novels' authors. In order to situate the texts within a transnational tradition of writing about modern warfare, I draw on Paul Fussell's work on the fictional writings of the Second World War in combination with Tobey Herzog's work on the writings of America's war in Vietnam. Through a reading of Sousa Jamba's Patriots and Mark Behr's The Smell of Apples. I illustrate that while these and other southern African war texts can be situated within a transnational tradition of writing about modern warfare, they also extend the tradition by adding new and previously silenced voices. I then turn to a focus on specific experiences of southern African anti-colonial war as represented in Pepetela's Mayombe and Mark Behr's The Smell of Apples. These texts are read in light of Franz Fanon's extensive writings on the nature of colonial violence and with a focus on the role of the victim and perpetrator in violent resistance to colonial oppression. Following this, and keeping with my examination of the experience of war in southern Africa, I read Pepetela's Mayombe. Sousa Jamba's Patriots and Chenjerai Hove's Bones with a view to highlighting their writing of women in times of war. Using the work of Florence Stratton, this section exposes the great difficulties faced by women in times of war as a result of war's complicity in the maintenance of patriarchal societal structures. Finally, I read Chenjerai Hove's Bones and Mia Couto's Under the Frangipani as post-war texts so as to highlight the authors' use of organic images to imagine post-war futures that are not tainted by the experience of war. In examining this topic, I aim to suggest that all of the texts studied show war to be a continuum that results in failed societies. I therefore read the texts as active interventions that seek to break the destructive cycle of the region's wars in the hope of better and constructive futures. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2005.