Palavras em revoluc?a?o o uso poli?tico das figuras de linguagem em tre?s contos de No?s mata?mos o Ca?o-Tinhoso /

by 1970- Franco, Andre? Milhomem

We Killed the Mangy-Dog and Other Stories, the first and only book of the Mozambican writer Luís Bernardo Honwana was originally published in Portuguese in 1964 and later translated into English and several other languages. The book came out in English in 1969 when it was published in London by Heinemman Educational Books Ltd. Honwana’s short stories, especially, “The Hands of Blacks,” gave him instantly recognition as one of the most important African authors of the 20th century. It is worth noting that nowadays both author and work are repeatedly included in any significant African Literature Anthology or College reading list in Portuguese. The three short stories analyzed in this thesis “We Killed the Mangy-Dog,” “The Hands of the Blacks,” and “Nhinguitimo” were written in the early 1960’s when most African colonies were seeking independence from their European colonizers, in a historical moment known these days as decolonization of Africa. In this thesis I argued that the author used various figures of speech, such as allegories, symbols, metaphor, metonym, and synecdoche as a strategy to convey the political meaning of his discourse, as well as, the revolutionary ideology behind his apparently inoffensive stories. It is important to note that the author was a member of the rebel group Frelimo (Mozambican Liberation Front) when he was sent to jail in 1964. In other words, not only the citizen, but also the writer Honwana was involved in the struggle. The first as a potential soldier, whereas the second, as a critic of the Mozambican society established by the Portuguese and a propagandist of the revolutionary movement. We Killed the Mangy-Dog and Other Stories read within its historical moment is much more than a piece of art. Besides, it is an important document of both the way of life of the various people’s of Mozambique, and the first moments of the revolutionary movement that would finally prevail in 1975.