SOPHIE ESCH
"Na savana em volta, apenas os embondeiros contemplam o mundo a desflorir”
Mia Couto, Terra sonâmbula, 9
While I'm a Latin Americanist by training, a course on Luso-African literature in grad school at Tulane University (I was in a Spanish & Portuguese Department) sparked an unabating interest to work on Luso-African and Central American literature comparatively. Both literatures occupy similarly complex periphery-center positions within their continents and the war and postwar writing of both regions show an astounding number of similarities. Furthermore, the novel Sleepwalking Land by Mia Couto is the one that en gran parte inspired my current book project on human-nonhuman entanglements in narratives of armed conflict. In it, I analyze and compare works by some of the most renowned writers of Mozambique and Angola: Mia Couto, Paulina Chiziane, Jośe Eduardo Agualusa, Pepetela, and Manuel Rui.