Other sides of new moon: a historical reading of election of Rui de Noronha as first mozambican poet

Abstract

This article seeks to read from a historical perspective the election of Rui de Noronha as the first Mozambican poet, understanding this as process. Therefore, the article makes a diachronic reception study investigating two groups of texts: 1) the production of critical reviews of Noronha’s work by white intellectuals, which gravitates around the posthumous organization of a collection of his sonnets in 1943; 2) texts which reveals the position and reception of Rui de Noronha in the black and mestizo literary environment in Lourenço Marques in the early years of the 20th century. This elective process is especially relevant to understand the debates involved in the birth of an autonomous literature in moments of cultural assimilation, racism, and intense ethnocentrism in the colony.