Pensativities: Selected Essays

Foreword

Mia couto is Mozambique’s best-known writer internationally, and his fiction now appears in more than twenty languages. His first published literary work, in 1983, was as a poet, a genre he has continued to cultivate over the years. His international readership is most familiar with his novels and short stories. Couto is also a highly respected public intellectual, who has written and spoken on a wide range of topical issues relating to African politics and culture. This book is designed to introduce readers of English to a selection of such writings, taken from three collections of essays and autobiographical texts published in Portuguese under the titles of Pensatempos (2005), E se Obama fosse africano? e outras interinvenções (2009), and Pensageiro frequente (2010).

Couto began his writing career as a journalist, serving as director of the Mozambican state news agency, and editor of a daily newspaper and a weekly news magazine in the years immediately following the independence of Mozambique in 1975. He still publishes articles in the press, and his most consistent contributions over the years have taken the shape of the crónica: a flexible form whose genre falls somewhere between that of the opinion column, the short story, and the personal anecdote, and whose tradition is highly prized in the Portuguese-speaking press.

The importance of the crónica harks back to the emergence of the press in nineteenth century. The genre enabled authors to make social or political comments on topics of popular interest, often using anecdote or the story of a personal experience as their starting point. In this way, serious and sometimes contentious issues could be addressed in a light-hearted, entertaining and often oblique manner, in an environment where democratic institutions and the notion of a free press were still notably fragile. Some of the most widely respected writers of fiction also wrote chronicles for the press in nineteenthth-century Portugal and Brazil. Mia Couto follows in this tradition, and his dedication to what might be considered a hybrid genre is reflected in the fact that some of his chronicles have even been included in his collections of short stories. The world of creative writing and of reportage overlap and often mesh in his work, and this is especially apparent in this collection, in pieces such as “The China within Us,” “Land of Water and Rain,” and “A Boat in the Sky over Munhava,” which contain anecdote, poetic childhood memories, and implied topical comment. They invite us to ponder on the complexities of identity, the contrasts between urban and rural life in a developing country like Mozambique, and the challenges of nature conservation. Indeed, ecological issues are a frequent topic in Mia Couto’s essays, as he trained as a biologist, and works in the field of ecological conservation.

In addition to crónicas, this collection contains a wide range of Mia Couto’s speeches, lectures, and talks. These texts give us his thoughts on African literature and culture, the erroneous views that many in the West have of Africa, and the nefarious effects such views have on the mentalities of emerging elites on the continent. (One such effect includes the spread of what he calls “developmentalese,” a linguistic and cultural depenendce on outsiders’ prescriptions for development. Couto contends that a younger generation of Africans must overcome this submissiveness to western perceptions, and to do so by finding their own solutions to issues of culture, economics, social opportunity and equality, or natural conservation. Two of the texts also discuss the influence of Brazilian literature on authors of his generation, as Brazilian writers from the mid-twentieth century had adapted the Portuguese language to better reflect their cultural and linguistic diversity. Mozambican writers from the 1960s to the 1980s took that strategy as a model through which to explore African realities. At the same time, a recurring theme in these essays is Couto’s rejection of essentialist views of identity, and of so-called African authenticity. For Couto, identity is fluid, prone to change, and above all a narrative, he believes that, Africans should accept their cultural hybridity as a creative force and an expression of their own contribution to modernity.

Readers familiar with Couto’s fiction will find material in these essays that complements the themes and ideas suggested in his novels and short stories. Those entering Couto’s world through these essays will discover here an essential contribution to contemporary debates about Africa.

— David Brookshaw