An attempt to push the shadows away: “The coast of whispers”, by Lídia Jorge

Abstract

The novel A costa dos murmúrios de Lídia Jorge dismystifies the discourse of the official history and unveils the desintegration of the Portuguese national identity. In a first moment of this novel, the mythical discourse of the supremacy of the ‘great Portuguese Empire’ is redoubled in the harmonic voices of ‘the univocal historic truth’ of the ‘Evitas’, those ‘rendilheiras do Stella’, Penelopes awaiting their ‘heroes’, who have a voice in the account of “Os Gafanhotos”. However, soon afterwards, we witness the deconstruction of this discourse represented in “Os Gafanhotos” and the construction of a vacillant truth that finds its balance in the precariousness of the murmuring of the memories and keeps us aware of the fragility of this recollection as it is subject to a selective and partial filter.