Mulemba, V. 17, N. 32, jan.-jun. 2025
In order to highlight and strengthen ties between Brazil and Cape Verde, the Mulemba journal, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, invites us to think about the dialogue that arises from the historical experiences of the two nations, operated from the perspective of solidarity, as if the Archipelago began to reflect on its own identity from the 20th century onwards, with Brazilian Modernist Literature, the affinities between the two spaces are still fruitful and present in fields that extend beyond the literary.
This alignment can also be perfectly considered from the point of view of comparative studies, in which the egalitarian perspective of nations with similar historical heritage is strengthened, considering the spaces that house hybrid, interactive cultural complexes, in which cultures productively feed off pieces of many cultures. This fact highlighted similar or developed themes in Cape Verdean and Brazilian Literature (and also in other African Literatures in Portuguese), through a kind of exchanged imaginary, at the intersection of these and other historical and social experiences, which were transformed into artistic/aesthetic experiences.
And without forgetting dystopian times, this dossier aims to have a broad debate on the concept of utopia, in the sense of understanding it as the materialization of the literature itself demanding other spaces and better times.
The displacements, so present in Cape Verde, were identified by classic studies as a consequence of the agricultural economy and were predominantly male, nowadays, based on recent data, they assume the shape of female emigration. The common feature of both transits, in the West, is the prohibition of closed borders to foreigners. Reclaiming the movement of people and ideas, between different global spaces is to investigate respect for otherness, representations and imaginaries of populations, in the aspects involved in this configuration.
Thinking about the Brazil/Cape Verde relationship means to reflect, in the context of colonial and post-colonial studies, on themes that highlight conflicts, communitarianism, decolonialism, resistance, - epistemologies that foresee the expansion of Literature to areas such as music, theater, cinema, among others. We try to understand, analyze and theorize about forms of cultural manifestations, beyond the written text, because we think about Literature in its broad relationships with various cultural forms.
The intertwining between Literature and Education aims to reflect on the path and horizons for teaching Literature, including the approach of Brazilian law 10,639, of 2003, in terms of inclusion and exclusion in educational systems.
We also aim to highlight the perspectives of African female texts, in contemporary times, when women writers destabilize values and images constructed about them in the patriarchal literary system.
We are looking for articles that develop the proposals in poetry, short stories, micro-stories in novels, chronicles, Children's or Young Adult Literature, theatrical texts and cinematographic and musical languages:
- The transit of underprivileged people around the world as evidence of a new way of living and occupying spaces in the literature of Brazil and/or Cape Verde;
- Literary dialogues between Brazil and Cape Verde carried out in the 20th and/or 21st centuries;
- The literary transposition of Brazilian and Cape Verdean texts into other languages such as cinema and theater;
- Cultural manifestations, in Brazil and Cape Verde, in the field of music: oral and written;
- The fight against racism and all forms of prejudice, in dialogue with Law 10,639/2003;
- Literary historiography in the inclusion and/or exclusion of authors and works from the canon, in Brazilian and Cape Verdean literature;
- Other dialogues, between the literature of Brazil and Cape Verde with the literary series of Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe;
- Writings by Cape Verdean, African, and Afro-diasporic women in the Contemporary Literature scene.
Keywords: Cape Verdean literature; Brazilian literature; Utopia; Dystopia.
