“HOMELAND IS WHERE MY FEET ARE”: THE PLURAL TERRITORIES NARRATED IN A RAINHA GINGA, BY JOSÉ EDUARDO AGUALUSA

Abstract

Hereby it is settled an interpretation of the narrator clerk from A Rainha Ginga: e de como os africanos inventaram o mundo (2014), by José Eduardo Agualusa, emphasizing the sceneries travelled by the protagonist. When narrator finds himself freed from the medieval Catholic principles, he finds his gist, synthesizing two worlds: Old and New World, full of adventures and surprises concerning Brazil and Angola. Here is the view of a medieval man who, despite his dogmatic education, finds in the colonies his genuine territory. History, geography, and ethnicity are the main searchlights to read this novel, so fiction and fact play an important role when combined. To keep track of the historical events, Agualusa read several diaries of the time, including Ginga’s official clerk annotations, Priest Cavazzi, and his Istorica Descrizione de’ter Regi Congo, Matamba ed Angola, written in the 17^th Century. Arendt (1961), Mudimbe (1988), Ribeiro (2006), Burke (2009), Jaja (2012), among others, were the main theoretical sources applied in this work.