The aim of this article is to investigate Coetzee’s decades-long, multifaceted, and, essentially, transnational dialogue with Poland and its cultural production—from Coetzee’s encounter of Polish poetry in the early 1960s until his 2022 novel El polaco. It intends to argue that Coetzee’s preoccupation with Polish literature and culture is part of a larger strategy of seeking new alliances and partnerships across the north-south/east-west divide, of building an alternative “affective community,” and of, simultaneously, de- and reprovincializing oneself and one’s oeuvre. Most importantly, Coetzee’s dialogue with Poland will be interpreted as an attempt to seek one’s rightful ancestry: literary and cultural, as well as genetic. The article will argue that the figure of the Pole is not simply a literary trope or the subject of Coetzee’s scholarly/readerly interest, but an instrument of both: self-defacement and identification with his Polish heritage.
{"title":"From the Heart of the Country to the European Core: J. M. Coetzee and los polacos","authors":"Robert Kusek","doi":"10.1017/pli.2023.22","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/pli.2023.22","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The aim of this article is to investigate Coetzee’s decades-long, multifaceted, and, essentially, transnational dialogue with Poland and its cultural production—from Coetzee’s encounter of Polish poetry in the early 1960s until his 2022 novel El polaco. It intends to argue that Coetzee’s preoccupation with Polish literature and culture is part of a larger strategy of seeking new alliances and partnerships across the north-south/east-west divide, of building an alternative “affective community,” and of, simultaneously, de- and reprovincializing oneself and one’s oeuvre. Most importantly, Coetzee’s dialogue with Poland will be interpreted as an attempt to seek one’s rightful ancestry: literary and cultural, as well as genetic. The article will argue that the figure of the Pole is not simply a literary trope or the subject of Coetzee’s scholarly/readerly interest, but an instrument of both: self-defacement and identification with his Polish heritage.","PeriodicalId":42913,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry","volume":"159 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41271020","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This article reflects on some textual and institutional elements that distinguish literary life in Portuguese-speaking African countries. These elements concern, firstly, the peculiarities of the Portuguese empire. Combining precarity, epistemological backwardness, and violence in equal proportion, it inspired an artistic response that was consolidated even before the independences. Secondly, they relate to the type of decolonization produced in these territories. Contrary to the majority of other African contexts, their independence was not negotiated, but conquered through armed struggle. Thirdly, there are the thematic and formal aspects: the “animal,” the “dead,” and an internationalist geographical imaginary play a structuring role in the literary fields. Thus, this article demonstrates how these contexts, unique to African literatures, can also offer new data for the analysis of cultural goods in the twenty-first century.
{"title":"African Literatures in the Portuguese Language: Singularities","authors":"Nazir Ahmed Can","doi":"10.1017/pli.2023.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/pli.2023.2","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article reflects on some textual and institutional elements that distinguish literary life in Portuguese-speaking African countries. These elements concern, firstly, the peculiarities of the Portuguese empire. Combining precarity, epistemological backwardness, and violence in equal proportion, it inspired an artistic response that was consolidated even before the independences. Secondly, they relate to the type of decolonization produced in these territories. Contrary to the majority of other African contexts, their independence was not negotiated, but conquered through armed struggle. Thirdly, there are the thematic and formal aspects: the “animal,” the “dead,” and an internationalist geographical imaginary play a structuring role in the literary fields. Thus, this article demonstrates how these contexts, unique to African literatures, can also offer new data for the analysis of cultural goods in the twenty-first century.","PeriodicalId":42913,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry","volume":"10 1","pages":"148 - 161"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42473913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The study of Mozambican literature is present at various latitudes within the academic world. There are, however, different outlooks and interests that must be analyzed if we want to account for the epistemologies present when facing a postcolonial reality such as Mozambique. On the understanding that literary texts are codified cultural information and that academics function as legitimators of discourses, this article offers an analysis of a corpus of academic publications on Mozambican literature published between 1975 and 2018. It posits thereby the possible existence of a Eurocentric constant within academic knowledge production and proposes some paths of action that may be of relevant pedagogical and self-reflective potentiality to the investigative exercise itself.
{"title":"The Eurocentric Constant: An Approach to the Study of Mozambican Literature","authors":"Helena González Doval","doi":"10.1017/pli.2023.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/pli.2023.6","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The study of Mozambican literature is present at various latitudes within the academic world. There are, however, different outlooks and interests that must be analyzed if we want to account for the epistemologies present when facing a postcolonial reality such as Mozambique. On the understanding that literary texts are codified cultural information and that academics function as legitimators of discourses, this article offers an analysis of a corpus of academic publications on Mozambican literature published between 1975 and 2018. It posits thereby the possible existence of a Eurocentric constant within academic knowledge production and proposes some paths of action that may be of relevant pedagogical and self-reflective potentiality to the investigative exercise itself.","PeriodicalId":42913,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry","volume":"10 1","pages":"198 - 216"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45471053","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract With reference to the five articles in the special issue, this introduction reflects on the relative absence of Lusophone African literature from the mainstream of African literary studies. Because of the insular and backward nature of Portugal’s colonialism, the protracted wars in Angola and Mozambique, and the sheer magnitude of the postcolony of Brazil as a center for the reception of Lusophone writing, this literature has followed a path of its own. However, although a fair amount of scholarly attention has been paid to the early anticolonial and nationalist generations of writers, this special issue updates the account of the Luso-African literary world by looking also at current developments in publishing (locally and abroad) and reception, especially in Brazil.
{"title":"The Luso-African Literary World: Introduction","authors":"Stefan Helgesson, Marcello G. P. Stella","doi":"10.1017/pli.2023.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/pli.2023.5","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract With reference to the five articles in the special issue, this introduction reflects on the relative absence of Lusophone African literature from the mainstream of African literary studies. Because of the insular and backward nature of Portugal’s colonialism, the protracted wars in Angola and Mozambique, and the sheer magnitude of the postcolony of Brazil as a center for the reception of Lusophone writing, this literature has followed a path of its own. However, although a fair amount of scholarly attention has been paid to the early anticolonial and nationalist generations of writers, this special issue updates the account of the Luso-African literary world by looking also at current developments in publishing (locally and abroad) and reception, especially in Brazil.","PeriodicalId":42913,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry","volume":"10 1","pages":"139 - 147"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46032119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Focusing on the work of independent publishers in Lusophone Africa, this article investigates the strategies undertaken by the publishers to develop their catalog and run a publishing house in challenging environments. My examples will be drawn from ongoing initiatives by Filinto Elísio and Márcia Souto (Rosa de Porcelana, Cape Verde), Miguel de Barros and Tony Tcheca (Corubal, Guinea-Bissau), Abdulai Sila (Kusimon, Guinea-Bissau), Luiz Vicente (Nimba Edições, Guinea-Bissau/Portugal), Ondjaki (Kacimbo, Angola), Mbate Pedro, Jessemusse Cacinda, Sandra Tamele, and Dany Wambire (Cavalo do Mar, Ethale Books, Trinta Zero Nove, and Fundza, respectively, Mozambique). Although most scholarship on Luso-African writing has been devoted to the form and content of these literatures, there has been scant attention to the socio-history of publishers.
摘要本文以非洲葡语国家独立出版商的工作为研究对象,探讨了在充满挑战的环境下,出版商制定目录和经营出版社所采取的策略。我将以Filinto Elísio和Márcia Souto (Rosa de Porcelana,佛得角)、Miguel de Barros和Tony Tcheca(科卢巴尔,几内亚比绍)、Abdulai Sila(库西蒙,几内亚比绍)、Luiz Vicente(宁巴Edições,几内亚比绍/葡萄牙)、Ondjaki(安哥拉卡辛博)、Mbate Pedro、Jessemusse Cacinda、Sandra Tamele和Dany Wambire (Cavalo do Mar、Ethale Books、Trinta Zero Nove和Fundza,分别来自莫桑比克)为例。虽然大多数关于葡非写作的奖学金一直致力于这些文献的形式和内容,但很少有人关注出版商的社会历史。
{"title":"Independent Publishing in Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, and Guinea-Bissau","authors":"Marcello G. P. Stella","doi":"10.1017/pli.2023.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/pli.2023.4","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Focusing on the work of independent publishers in Lusophone Africa, this article investigates the strategies undertaken by the publishers to develop their catalog and run a publishing house in challenging environments. My examples will be drawn from ongoing initiatives by Filinto Elísio and Márcia Souto (Rosa de Porcelana, Cape Verde), Miguel de Barros and Tony Tcheca (Corubal, Guinea-Bissau), Abdulai Sila (Kusimon, Guinea-Bissau), Luiz Vicente (Nimba Edições, Guinea-Bissau/Portugal), Ondjaki (Kacimbo, Angola), Mbate Pedro, Jessemusse Cacinda, Sandra Tamele, and Dany Wambire (Cavalo do Mar, Ethale Books, Trinta Zero Nove, and Fundza, respectively, Mozambique). Although most scholarship on Luso-African writing has been devoted to the form and content of these literatures, there has been scant attention to the socio-history of publishers.","PeriodicalId":42913,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry","volume":"10 1","pages":"178 - 197"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48588937","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This piece responds to the three pieces on Dockside Reading. It provides background on the making of the book, its experimental nature, and discusses the ways in which the three responses extend the book’s reach and implications. The piece concludes with a description of the author’s new project, Elemental Reading.
{"title":"Reader Response to Dockside Reading","authors":"Isabel Hofmeyr","doi":"10.1017/pli.2023.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/pli.2023.10","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This piece responds to the three pieces on Dockside Reading. It provides background on the making of the book, its experimental nature, and discusses the ways in which the three responses extend the book’s reach and implications. The piece concludes with a description of the author’s new project, Elemental Reading.","PeriodicalId":42913,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry","volume":"10 1","pages":"254 - 258"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49191058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In her discussion of censorship in Dockside Reading: Hydrocolonialism and the Custom House, Isabel Hofmeyr homes in on a figure of reading invoked by Nadine Gordimer in a letter protesting that the censors treat literature “as a commodity to be boiled down to its components and measured like a bar of soap.”1 Hofmeyr, recognizing that such reading echoes that of the officials of colonial custom houses, asks what we might learn from those “who tried to read a book as a bar of soap”?2
{"title":"Literary Studies Beyond “The Colonial Book”: A Response to Isabel Hofmeyr’s Dockside Reading: Hydrocolonialism and the Custom House","authors":"K. Highman","doi":"10.1017/pli.2023.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/pli.2023.9","url":null,"abstract":"In her discussion of censorship in Dockside Reading: Hydrocolonialism and the Custom House, Isabel Hofmeyr homes in on a figure of reading invoked by Nadine Gordimer in a letter protesting that the censors treat literature “as a commodity to be boiled down to its components and measured like a bar of soap.”1 Hofmeyr, recognizing that such reading echoes that of the officials of colonial custom houses, asks what we might learn from those “who tried to read a book as a bar of soap”?2","PeriodicalId":42913,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry","volume":"10 1","pages":"246 - 253"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45650149","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}