ABSTRACT
In 1963, Eugénio Lisboa felt indignant. This was not unusual. A prominent critic in Mozambique at the time, Lisboa was never one to shy away from the heat of literary quarrels. Ignorance-the word’s etymological link with ‘ignore’ is important to bear in mind here-was always a key target of his attacks. His polemic in A Voz de Moçambique in August 1963, ‘Mozambican literature as the crow fl ies,’ was no exception, although the immediate reason for his ire was unusual: an article in The New African about Mozambican writing. At fi rst, this had caused great excitement for Lisboa. Someone in South Africa had shown an interest in the neighbouring country’s literature! And not just anyone, moreover:
It was none other than Richard Rive who had been in Lourenço Marques some time ago for a study visit, let’s call it that, and with whom we had had long talks. . . . Of this friendly and fruitful contact fond memories had remained of a young, well-read man, hugely interested in various aspects of culture, dynamic, deliciously mischievous (when needed), highly approachable (despite his qualifi cations, or because of them), in sum, a wise and a good person. (Lisboa 1963: 6)1
Accordingly, Lisboa was curious to see what Rive, the South African, had written about Mozambican literature: ‘Who had he read? Had he read a lot? Had he read the best? Had he also read the not-so-great? Who had made the greatest impression on him? How had he gone about reading, given that he didn’t speak Portuguese?’ (1963: 6).2 Let us pause here, since Lisboa dramatizes his anxiousness and excitement so well. The accumulation of questions leads us as readers to a threshold that was particularly intractable for African literary critics in the postwar decades. This is the threshold of recognition, that hoped-for moment when the other will acknowledge the self in a manner that the self, in turn, will recognize. Lisboa’s article is undergirded by this powerful yet understated longing for meaningful connections, through print media and across languages, between discrete interpretive communities. He is sorely disappointed, however. In his article,
Rive (1963) highlights merely four poets-José Craveirinha, Rui Knopfl i, Malangatana Valente, and Duarte Galvão-of whom the latter two, in Lisboa’s opinion, are unimportant. Rive leaves out a large group of writers such as Reinaldo Ferreira, Alberto Lacerda, Glória de Sant’Anna, Orlando Mendes, Ilídio Rocha, and Fernando Couto, all of whom have greater merit than Valente and Galvão according to Lisboa: ‘To bypass a Reinaldo Ferreira in favour of the poetic stammerings of a still unformed Malangatana is an unacceptable impertinence or sheer carelessness from someone who, in literary matters, gives the impression of being a professional’(1963: 6).3 What is more, Rive has the nerve to call Craveirinha the most important of all Mozambican poets, although the work of many other writers ‘exhibits a content, a perfection of form, a true poetic spirit, a sense of purpose joined with a heightened sense of “poetic values” that are in no way overshadowed by the best of what Craveirinha has given us’ (Lisboa 1963: 6).4 What Rive in his ignorance of Portuguese and of Mozambican poetry has done, Lisboa maintains, is to confuse Craveirinha’s ‘social representativity’ with his ‘poetic stature’ (1963: 6).5
