When the smallest things unveil the greatest injustices: Herberto Helder and his passage through Angola

Abstract

Herberto Helder’s stay in Angola, in the early 1970s, lasted for nearly two years. During this period, while living in Luanda, the author, alongside his poetic work, also dedicated himself to journalism, writing chronicles and reports for a prestigious illustrated weekly newspaper of the time known as Notícia. Many of these texts were later compiled posthumously into the work em minúsculas, in which one can discern anti-colonial nuances that, to a certain extent, undermine the colonial and imperial imaginary that the Estado Novo regime was still striving to preserve in Africa. Marked by flashes of humour, often laced with irony and consciously more Apollonian than obscure, these chronicles and reports were written in a simpler style, yet they should not be read simplistically. The present study seeks to highlight Herberto Helder’s critical awareness at the Notícia editorial desk in relation to the colonial policies of the Estado Novo, whose downfall was already beginning to take shape.