ABSTRACT
The trajectory of late twentieth and early twenty-first-century Angolan poetry may be defined both as one of revolution against oppression from outside of the self and as one of the intimate exploration of that self's identity within the newly forming concept of the Angolan nation. A critical construct based on notions of socially oriented versus a more intimately oriented poetic may suffice to discuss individual poets within this complex artistic stratum. Manuel Rui's constant linguistic and thematic recombination insists, and rightly so, on a vision of a nation's strengths and challenges from the unique perspective of an individual who has experienced a country's utopian ideals upon formation and subsequent failures to fulfill the dream envisioned during the War of Independence against Portuguese colonial rule. An activist against colonialism and government abuses, his pre and post-independence artistic works outline utopian hopes and discourse followed by the disillusionment of post-independence.
