Nights not warm at all by Dina Salústio: the opportunity of dialogue

Abstract

Based on the short-stories from Mornas eram as noites, by the Cape-verdean fictionist Dina Salústio, I aim at discussing the declarations of some contemporary African writers with the support of Walter Benjamin and Tzvetan Todorov. I refer not only to Salústio, but also to African poets and fictionists who witness the difficulty in undertaking themselves as contemporary writers, claiming the condition of storytellers or spokeswomen of experiences, proving thus the valorisation of emotion. I conclude that the tales of Salústio significantly renew the Capeverdean fiction, dramatizing the tension between fiction and society, by means of a narrator absolutely committed with the experiences of the characters who are taken from the  surrounding world – women, children and handicapped men-, at the same time that promotes a re-reading of traditional Capeverdean themes, like insularity, evasion and poverty.