Research in African Literatures

Peres, Phyllis, 1953-
Women, Bodies, and Nation in Angolan Poetry of the 1950s
Research in African Literatures - Volume 38, Number 1, Spring 2007, pp. 35-45

Indiana University Press

Phyllis Peres - Women, Bodies, and Nation in Angolan Poetry of the 1950s - Research in African Literatures 38:1 Research in African Literatures 38.1 (2007) 35-45 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Women, Bodies, and Nation in Angolan Poetry of the 1950s Phyllis Peres University of Maryland, College Park The Silence of Women's Bodies In her article on three lusophone African women poets reprinted in Novos Pactos, Outras Ficções (2002), Laura Padilha argues that until the 1980s, there was a profound "silêncio na representação do corpo feminino" 'silence in the representation of women's bodies' among women writers. This silence extended even to consecrated and relatively prolific poets such as Alda Lara from Angola, Alda do Espírito Santo from São Tomé e Príncipe, and Noémia de Sousa from Mozambique (175). Additionally, this silence contrasts sharply with the gritos (cries or shouts) of postcolonial women writers such as Paula Tavares from Angola whose poetic paths express women's bodies and sensuality within highly contextualized sociopolitical verse. Interestingly enough, the poetic gritos of anticolonialism and oftentimes nationhood were expressed in varying degrees in the works of the above-mentioned women poets who emerged in the 1950s as part of revindicatory literary-cultural movements in the then Portuguese colonies and among students from the "ultramar" who were associated with the Casa dos Estudantes do Império in Lisbon. And, more...