A ‘Humble but Happy Home’ gone and an Empty Father. Addressing the Mother

ABSTRACT: The colonial empire ended in 1974, leaving a widespread sense of orphanhood that resonated deeply in Portuguese literature. Margarida Calafate Ribeiro and António Sousa Ribeiro (2018) observe that, through writing, the descendants of the empire reconcile with their parents’ memories—particularly those of their war-veteran fathers. This internal dialogue, however, often shifts toward reflections on the homeland itself. Moreover, Rothwell (2007) suggests that symbolic depictions of absent fatherhood permeate Portuguese literature, extending beyond the imperial ‘father of the nation’ figure.

This paper argues that in the emerging body of Portuguese narratives by women of African descent—such as Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida, Yara Nakahanda Monteiro, Aida Gomes, Luísa Semedo, and Patrícia Moreira—the emphasis on the father figure gives way to that of the mother. In these narratives, an introspective dialogue with the mother, often depicted as absent, becomes a medium through which the structural silences of a nation haunted by its colonial past are explored.

Keywords: Postcolonial Women’s Literature; Empty Fatherhood; Mother(hood); Transcultural Postcolonial Memories;

Bio blurb

Margarida Rendeiro holds a PhD in Portuguese Studies from King’s College, London, an M.A. in Anglo-American Studies and a B.A. in Modern Languages and Literatures from the University of Lisbon. She is an Integrated PhD Holder Researcher in the Centre for the Humanities (CHAM) at NOVA University of Lisbon. She is the Coordinator of the Research Unit for Transcultural, Literary and Postcolonial Studies at the CHAM. She co-edited Challenging Memories and Rebuilding Identities: Literary and Artistic Voices that undo the Lusophone Atlantic (Routledge, 2019) with Federica Lupati and authored the monograph The Literary Institution in Portugal since the Thirties: An Analysis under Special Consideration of the Publishing Market (Peter Lang, 2010). She is a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Práticas da História. Journal on Theory, Historiography and Uses of the Past Her research interests broach questions of women’s literature, contemporary cultures and literatures in (XX-XXI) in the Afro-Luso-Brazilian Atlantic; forms of cultural resistance and reparative justice; and Afropean and Black Studies. She is the Principal Researcher of the I&D Project Women’s Literature Project: Memories, Peripheries and Resistance in the Luso-Afro-Brazilian Atlantic, funded by FCT/Portugal (2022-2024/June 2025) and the Coordinator Abroad/Member of the Team of the Project Women in literature and visual arts: representations of Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian Women, financed by CAPES/Abdias Nascimento Programme (2024-2027).

Date: 17 December, 2024
Venue: Room B112.C
Schedule: 11 am-01 pm