Aqui e lá : a identidade do filho preto em “Até que as pedras se tornem mais leves que a água”, de António Lobo Antunes

Abstract

The 20th century means, for many European countries, the period of identification of the greatest powers in Africa. In the Portuguese case, the presence occurs until 1975, with the end of the dictatorship initiated by Salazar by the Carnation Revolution, a historical moment that made possible the independence of the colonized countries. The publication of literary works with themes from the Colonial War and the presence until before the independence of the former colonies proliferated, mainly by the feeling of trauma generated by the loss of the former colonies and the exodus of an expressive number of returnees forced to abandon lands that, for years were taken by theirs. António Lobo Antunes, one of these writers uses the period before 1975 to construct his narratives, both as a cause and an effect of the War on the lives of his characters. In Até que as pedras se tornem mais leves que a água (2017), one of his last published novels, we have a father and son as main characters. Both are linked by blood, not in a genetic way, but from a brutal episode and its consequence: the death of both within a traditional ritual known as the slaughter of pigs. Knowing this, this work aims to analyze the construction of the identity of this son, a child removed from Angola and raised on Portuguese soil.