Building a bridge: Reconciling European and African world-views in the works of contemporary Mozambican women writers

This dissertation investigates the contributions of three main contemporary Mozambican women writers---Paulina Chiziane, Lina Magaia, and Lilia Momple---to the development of a Mozambican national literature. Three prose texts have been selected: Balada de Amor ao Vento (1990) by Paulina Chiziane, Delehta. Pulos na Vida (1994) by Lina Magaia, and Os Olhos da Cobra Verde (1997) by Lilia Momple. The analysis of these texts has been preceded by Mozambique's historical background, with particular emphasis on the question of gender. The Afrocentric method has been used in the critique of the works by Chiziane, Magaia, and Momple. I have divided the analysis into three main categories: themes, voices, and narrative strategies, and applied the Afrocentric location theory in assessing these texts. The close reading of Chiziane's, Magaia's, and Momple's prose fiction has led me to conclude that their texts function as spaces for an aesthetic reconciliation between the European and the African worldviews.