Religiosidade e resistência: uma análise de O Outro Pé da Sereia, de Mia Couto

Abstract

This research aims to present an analysis of African religiosity as an element of persistence of the colonized being, which will also culminate in a political resistance in response to the oppressive actions of the European colonizer. Such data will be verified and highlighted in the book O Outro Pé da Sereia (2007) written by Mia Couto, a Mozambican author. It discusses the concepts of post-colonialism and animist realism focused on literary criticism, more specifically African Literatures of Portuguese language. He confronts the elements of the study by Albert Memmi, O Retrato do Colonizado Precedido do Retrato do Colonizador (2007), especially when the author focuses on the portrait of the oppressed on the African continent. Due to some inquires that has been made along the course of this research, it verified that although Memmi´s analysis is a reference - both for literary criticism focused on the literature that reflects the phenomenon of colonialism and for postcolonial studies itself - this does not fully contemplate the possibilities of political action and the strategies developed (consciously or unconsciously) for the identities preservation, in this case, of the African peoples. The analysis brings up as a result of the study some alternatives of reading the reconstitution of the African identity by the maintenance, in some level, of the religious aspect presented in a dream and poetic universe featured in Couto´s writing.