“Que se pode fazer só com palavras?” Escrita de si, intelectualidade e o nacional nos cadernos de cárcere de José Luandino Vieira (1962-1971)

Abstract

The thesis analyzes, through his prison notebooks, the conjunction of José Luandino Vieira's political and literary project that had been developed during his period of incarceration. José Luandino Vieira is a renowned angolan writer and intellectual who was a political prisoner of the portuguese colonial regime between 1961 and 1974. His prison notebooks were written between 1962 and 1971, a period in which he was imprisoned in several jails in Luanda, Angola, and in the Campo de Trabalho de Chão Bom, better known as the Tarrafal detetion camp, in Cape Verde. His diaries contain notes, correspondence (internal letters and notes), literary sketches and notes. Through self-writing, we can ascertain the manifestation and consolidation of their intellectuality in a political and literary project that highlighted the purpose of Angola as a space for union and collective resistance. In addition, the author presents a vision of the prison as an exceptional observatory of the Angolan nation. With notebooks as the materiality of an intimate writing, personal anxieties and dreams are expressed. In addition to being a great testimony of the prison's daily life during the period of struggle for independence in Angola.