FRIENDSHIP AS A CULTURAL AND TRANSNATIONAL LINK IN MIA COUTO’S TERRA SONÂMBULA

Abstract

Friendship as a family, social and national link, has a central role in Terra Sonâmbula because it clarifi es the meaning of travel and vagrancy on African tradition and, particularly, in the context of war. This paper offers a reading of Mia Couto’s novel according to three main perspectives: the analysis of movement as a narrative procedure visible through the travel and the vagrancy of characters, but also in their own story telling. This interception of lives and narrative lines creates emotional links between characters but also magical moments that alleviate suffering and abandoned feelings; secondly, this reading show how friendship becomes a transnational link that gives a special life and narrative movement to death in the context of war; finally, this paper analyses Mia Couto’s awareness and political commitment to Mozambique through an affective vigilance towards the acceptance of cultural difference. Terra Sonâmbula invites the reader to explore plural linguistic, cultural and ethnical perspectives on African territory.