Fissured Ground

National History in Angolan Fiction, Origins to Independence

This fascinating history explores the development of a distinctive national prose tradition in colonial Angola, tracing how intellectuals, writers, and citizens imagined the future nation in their literature.

Angola, a nation formed by the transatlantic slave trade, has a unique identity in Africa, enshrined in its hybridized, outward-looking, Portuguese-speaking culture and expressed by its rich literature. The development of a distinctive national prose tradition can be found throughout colonial Angola’s fascinating history, shaped by the slave trade’s impact on the formation of Angolan society and the creation of a nascent mixed-race national bourgeoisie strongly connected to Brazil. Creolized Angolans imagined the future nation in their literature – a vision brought to fruition through nationalist activism.

The emergence of anticolonial writers in the 1940s consolidated the fissures found in Angola in the buildup to its War of Independence (1961–75). Drawing from rich historical records, Stephen Henighan traces the race debates among proindependence groups and examines work by exiles writing in 1960s Paris and Algiers, guerrilla memoirs by women, fiction written in concentration camps, and Brazilian and Cuban influences on Angolan prose. Prominent Angolan intellectuals such as Agostinho Neto, José Luandino Vieira, and Pepetela play parts in this panorama, as do international figures such as Che Guevara, Frantz Fanon, and Henry Kissinger, who are seen from fresh, unexpected angles. The story culminates in Angola’s 1975 independence and the country’s resolve to found national literary institutions.

The product of nearly two decades of research, and only the first part of what will be a foundational work, Fissured Ground illustrates how Angolan literature contributes to a unified national identity and connects to the global struggle for independence.

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