Mozambican Literature, Neoliberalism, and the Long 1980s

Abstract

Abstract:Although the work of Mozambican authors has routinely been overlooked within the Anglophone academy, due in part to its use of a semiperipheral colonial language and a lack of availability in translation, the study of Mozambican texts from the period of the long 1980s can nevertheless offer valuable insight into both the literary coordinates of neoliberal world-culture as well as the more general strategies used by peripheral writers to mediate moments of economic transition. This essay seeks to remedy this disconnect through a series of comparative readings of texts by Mia Couto, Suleiman Cassamo, and Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa.