Address of Memories in O canto dos escravizados

Abstract

This article comes from a mapping elaborated on mozambican authors (2016-2017), in the scope of post-doctoral studies. This research resulted in the book “Cartografias under construction - Some female writers from Mozambique” (EDUFRB, 2019). The book “The Singing of the Slaves” (Nandyala, 2018), by Paulina Chiziane, from the Mozambican storyteller, stands out in this text. Its discursive focus agendas understandings about memorial ballads and the recurrence of the sea as an environment of memories invented by voices and cries present in the work. The purpose of this text is to present some descriptive-interpretative readings of the “texts in verses”, as the author characterizes the narratives, with an emphasis on understanding odes as inventions of memories of what one wants to remember, but also forgotten, related to the slavery of africans in the Americas. It is expected, with this text, to encourage the reading of “The Singing of the Slaves” and the understanding that remembering, similar to “texts in verses”, can mean a process of immersion in the past, implying forgetting and/or revoking memories and inventing the present time.