Past and Present in (In)Confidences, by Odete Semedo

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the book entitled (In)Confidências (2023), the most recent work by the Guinean writer Odete Semedo, considering the thought of Amílcar Cabral as a key to interpretation. In her third book of poetry and fifth literary work, Odete Semedo reveals herself as a singular and collective subject, who simultaneously expresses her individuality and the social outcry of her people, reinforcing the path she has trodden since her first work in 1996. In this article, we intend to investigate the connections to the past – whether ancestral, considering the memory and history of the peoples that constitute the territory of Guinea-Bissau, or colonial, focusing on the benefits and harms arising from the Portuguese enterprise – and to the present in which the author finds herself, which are poetically materialized in the writer’s verses. To this end, the discussion will address ancestry, literary heritage, and Guinean society, based on the reflections of Amílcar Cabral, Moema Augel, Honorat Aguessy, Linda Hutcheon, Julia Kristeva, and Mikhail Bakhtin.