“Nós matamos o Cão Tinhoso” and Monólogos com a História: between Literature and Cinema

rewriting and mozambican memories

Abstract

This research is based on recurring symbolic images in literature and cinema produced during the period of late colonialism and in the post-independence, which question the project of nationhood that was envisioned for Mozambique. The aim is therefore to reveal these images and answer the question: how is this project questioned in the artistic works of the Mozambican authors who make up the corpus of this study, through rewritings and memories? Referring to the colonial and revolutionary past, the short stories and film analysed reflect multiple motivations, sometimes overlapping, such as updating, contemporizing, or even opposing. Dialogues were identified between memories, literature and cinema, in the search for possible interpretations and (re)readings of the past and History in the present. Luís Bernardo Honwana’s foundational short story “Nós matámos o Cão-Tinhoso” (2008[1964]) is taken up by Hélder Faife in the narrative “O Cão Tinhoso” (2013). Monólogos com a História (2019), by filmmaker Sol de Carvalho, was made under the inspiration of the short story “Um diálogo à beira duma sepultura” (2011), by Aldino Muianga. The figures of spectres and ruins, in relation to the world of the living, are frequent in the literary works and the film mentioned and constitute the categories of analysis that the article proposes to develop.

The story “Nós matámos o Cão-Tinhoso” (2008[1964]), by Luís Bernardo Honwana, is retaken by Hélder Faife in the short story “O Cão Tinhoso” (2013). Monólogos com a História (2019), by filmmaker Sol de Carvalho, was inspired by the short story “Um diálogo à beira duma sepultura” (2011), by Aldino Muianga. We developed analyzes of these objects of study in pairs and, then, in a transversal way, from concepts that cross them. The figures of specters and ruins, in dialogue with the world of the living, are recurrent in the literary works and in the film that integrate this article and constitute, for us, metaphorical images of the current Mozambican context.

We carried out an interview with the cinematographic director Sol de Carvalho, which allowed us to confirm the hypothesis that memory(s), literature and cinema have been dialoguing, in the search for possible interpretations and (re)readings of the past, of History, in the present.