As Mulheres do Meu Pai: From Luanda to the Island of Mozambique, a road novel on board candongueiro

Abstract

The universality of the ideal of freedom offered by the road leads authors of different countries and cultures to adopt the road novel as a medium of expression, regardless its historical indissociability to the United States of America. In this regard, the aim of this work is to verify if the characteristics of As Mulheres do Meu Pai (2007), by José Eduardo Agualusa, allow it to be classified as a road novel in the context of African literature. It was concluded that the work fulfils the majority of this literary subgenre basis requirements, specially the inevitable link between the physical and spiritual journeys, the confluence of several narrative genres, the space cartography as a reflection of the characters’ contemplative attitude, and the use of motorized transport. The predominance of masculine -another condition required in the literary subgenre road novel- fails to be achieved, because in As Mulheres do Meu Pai the single feminine traveller claims the leading role, establishing herself as the main figure of the work