ABSTRACT
Following the considerations on Medea and the “cycle of hunger” presented by Chantal Maillard in her recent essay La compasión difícil (2019), this chapter presents an analysis of Ventos do Apocalipse (1993), a novel by Mozambican writer Paulina Chiziane, which shows how women are inevitably responsible for life and death, for periods of drought and famine, and for intertribal conflicts. It explores the possibility of a ghostly presence of Medea illuminating the actions perpetrated by the female community of Mananga and how these cross different eras, from the precolonial and colonial contexts to the period of independence from Portugal in 1975 and the subsequent civil war. It also questions how the patriarchal system controls motherhood and inflicts a transgenerational crisis that eventually leads women to commit amoral acts and infanticide. This chapter aims to demonstrate how female stereotypes are deconstructed in the text by granting narrative agency to women, appealing to traditional stories and oral narratives and weaving them into the construction of new networks of solidarity. By identifying Medea’s disorder as a result of systematic oppression used to deny women access to decision-making sites, this chapter underscores the need to include their voices and experiences in the nation-building process.
