Trânsitos, paragens e identidades em A Árvore das Palavras

Abstract

The novel “A Arvore das Palavras” (1997), written by the portuguese Teolinda Gersao, approaches the parameters from the new historical novel. These narratives, in general, aim to rewrite historical facts through fictional discourse, tracing an identity constitution that considers cultural, social, political, etc., and aims to revisit historical versions, often subverting them through discursve mechanisms. Thus, the portuguese author’s novel visits a part of the history of Mozambique, when the country was still a portuguese colony, and reveals, mainly through the restless and lyrical gaze of the Gita character, the process of decolonization of the nation and the cultural relations established between colony and metropolis. Gita, the main character of the novel and narrator of two of the three parts in which the novel is divided, allegorizes the personification between the two transit spaces of history: she is the daughter of the portuguese settlers Amelia and Laureano, but she was born in Lourenco Marques and, contacts and influences of Loia, the old milkmaid, feels welcomed and linked to the african physical and cultural environment. Thus, through the figuration of diverse spaces and the cultural and historical experience that the characters establish with them, it is possible to perceive in the novel the different experiences facing the reality of colonization and the discursive disparities produced from this social context.