O “não lugar” pós-colonial: a questão identitária em O retorno, de Dulce Maria Cardoso

Abstract

The following dissertation studies, throughout its development, the “non-place” issue, associated with migratory movements and usually present in novels written under migrants’ perspective. In order to discuss the “non-place” in postcolonial literature, this work will analyze the book The return, by Dulce Maria Cardoso (2013). Based on the historical context and on the character-narrator Rui, besides the review of some identity concepts, some points related to the non-belonging theme will be discussed, taking into consideration the specificity of the narration being in the place of a returned from Angola. When leaving homeland, the immigrant often feels lost in the new land, and the feeling of non-belonging is quite frequent. The proposition here aims to observe the “non-place” from the viewpoint of “second class Portuguese”, in other words, those Portuguese individuals who have migrated to the colonies or whose children who were born in the colonies and were forced to return to the metropolis once the decolonization process started. Those immigrants suffer twice: they are not welcomed anymore at old Portuguese colonies in Africa, neither are well accepted in Portugal by their compatriots. Therefore, they occupy an “non-place” identity, since they are split between two worlds and, at the same time, they don’t identify themselves with none of them.