Nzinga Mbandi: From Story to Myth

Abstract

The figure of Queen Nzinga Mbandi continues to be appreciated in fictional and/or historical narratives as a myth of postcolonial Angolan identity, allowing a continuous approach as to what concerns the modes of cultural representation. In this article, the works of Manuel Pedro Pacavira, Nzinga Mbandi (1975), Pepetela, A gloriosa família: o tempo dos flamengos (1997) and José Eduardo Agualusa, A Rainha Ginga e de como os africanos inventaram o mundo (2014) will be analyzed, as these authors, in different moments of the recent Angolan history, look at this emblematic figure, drawing on historical information produced by Cavazzi, Cadornega or Jean Louis Castilhon, among others. The works now in analysis reiterate the mythical figure of resistance to the European invaders, which was Nzinga Mbandi, or a strong orientation towards the nationalist exaltation supported by it, an evident strategy which, by the rescue of figures and cultural practices, is defined as a means to affirm negritude.