Novels and Short Stories from Macau: Two Different Perspectives

Abstract

Critical studies about the Macanese and their literature in the former Portuguese colony of Macau have been scant. Novelists like Austin Coates (City of Broken Promises, 1967) from Great Britain and Henrique de Senna Fernandes (A tranca feiticeira, 1993) from Macau, as well as short story writers Deolinda da Conceicao (Macau) and Maria Ondina Braga (Portugal), depict life in colonial Macau. While the plots of these works display similarities, Coates’s and Braga’s perspectives are filtered through the lenses of European colonialism and Fernandes and da Conceicao work through the legacy of coloniality.