"The green snake eyes": Lília Momplé revisits the past of colonialist Mozambique

Abstract

Lília Momplé has a special place into the Mozambican literature, especially when we think about her three published books: Ninguém matou Suhura [Nobody has killed Suhura] (short-stories, 1988), Neighbours (novel, 1996) and Os olhos da cobra verde [The eyes of the green snake] (short-stories, 1997). Lília Momplé rescues the dilemmas of nationality when it comes to the subaltern characters’ experience. This fact restructures the comprehen­sion that we have of Mozambican postcolonial condition. Despite the im­portance of her name, Lília Momplé is rarely mentioned in the Lusophone African Literatures’ Studies written by Brazilian critics. To understand this absence is to understand the obstacles in the pathway that separates Brazilian readers from Lusophone African Literatures and especially from the Mozambican literature: the circulation of books and the editorial market’s logic in times marked by resides of colonialist cultural politics.