From persona to “Nossa voz”:

poetic militancy against the colonialism in Sangue negro by Noémia de Sousa

Abstract

Between the years 1948 and 1951, Noémia de Sousa published in magazines like Brado Africano and Itinerário poems that were reunited after in Sangue negro (Black Blood) in 2001 by the Mozambican Writers Association (Aemo). Noémia de Sousa’s poetry projected a collective voice against colonialism in Africa among intellectual agitations and boiled politics at Empire-Students House. This article analyzed how the persona reaches a collective and representative “us” for the Mozambican and African anti-colonial fight. The poems “Nossa voz”; “Nossa irmã a lua”; “Súplica”; “Abri a porta, companheiros”; “Passe”; and “Justificação” will be analyzed in this study. They make part of the first section of the book named “Nossa voz”. Also, the reflection about the political-literary movement (SECCO, 2011) of Sousa’s poetry is considered fundamental and reverberates in ideas of liberation movements for African continent independence.
Keywords: Sangue negro; anti-colonialism; “Nossa voz”.