A Última Tragédia, de Abdulai Sila: identidades transitórias, memória e a (re)construção nacional

Abstract

The object of study of this dissertation is the novel The Last Tragedy (2006), by Guinean writer Abdulai Sila. The work tells the succession of tragedies that occurred in the life of the character Ndani, from when he still lived in the village of Biombo, until the moment he moves to the space of the colonizer. It portrays the colonial period of Africa subjugated by the Portuguese colonizer and the traumatic process that surrounds it, and highlights the failure of that political project by making the voice of the underlings audible, as the colonized will be protagonists of the narrative. It is intended to discuss the identities present in the narrative of the characters Ndani, Régulo and Professor, as well as how they construct and reconstruct the national narrative. The black woman, Régulo de Quinhamel and the teacher, help to understand from different places and positions, the trajectory of Guinea Bissau, one of the five African nations that underwent the colonial process. The author, a survivor of the colonial wars, chooses to remember the facts in order to bring to life the tragic narrative of colonization. The research brings its theoretical framework guided mainly by Moema Augel (2007) for the construction of Guinea Bissau literature, besides Stuart Hall (2005), and Bhaba (2001), for the discussion of identities. We will also use Halbwachs (1990) regarding the bias of memory, identity and the construction of the collective memory of the Guinean nation.