Lisboa e a portugalidade: contranarrativas em obras de Orlanda Amarílis e Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida

I investigate, in works by Djaimilia Almeida and Orlanda Amarílis, the story of characters who dreamed of being in Lisbon and being Portuguese: Cartola (Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso), Boa Morte (Maremoto) and the protagonist of “Desencanto” (Cais-do-Sodré te Salamansa). The works denounce the impossibility for these characters to access “portugalidade”, an imaginary that celebrates the national mythologies and that manifests itself even in urban space. The exclusion of the characters occurs precisely in the urban space, and is related to matters of race and gender. My analysis has a feminist and postcolonial approach, in dialogue with Mbembe (2016), hooks (2005), Pratt (1994) and Vergés (2021).