Abstract
Written in English from a lusophone region, Sousa Jamba’s Patriots has suffered critical neglect through occupying an interstitial space created by the artificial separation of anglophone and lusophone texts. This paper is a critical intervention aimed at making the novel available to a wider audience and situating it within current debates on the national and the transnational in contemporary literature. The article situates Patriots within a transnational tradition of writing on modern warfare primarily by drawing on the work of Paul Fussell and Tobey Herzog. The article notes the structural similarities between Patriots and two classic novels of war, Stephen Crane’s Red badge of courage and Erich Maria Remarque’s All quiet on the Western Front. As a war novel, Patriots problematizes and questions notions of Angolan identities, belonging and nation. The article also draws attention to the contradictions inherent in the representation of women and war in the text. Jamba’s anti-war stance is examined in relation to his representation of woman and his critique of the militarised, gerontocratic, patriarchal structuring of Unita society.
Published Version
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