Abstract

BISCAIA, Maria Sofia Pimentel. Still rocking after all these years: adamastor writes back. Diacrítica [online]. 2015, vol.29, n.3, pp.182-203. ISSN 0807-8967.

This paper investigates the discursive construction of the mythical Adamastor in André Brink's The First Life of Adamastor (1993) vis-a-vis the one presented in its hypertext, The Lusiads by Luíz Vaz de Camões (1572). The latter celebrates the Portuguese colonialist enterprise and therefore it has been material in the construction of the Portuguese national identity. The identity built in a faraway past still prevails today, closely interconnected with notions of imperialist nostalgia. In his novel, Brink rewrites/recreates the figure of the giant as a South African native, providing the insight of the ‘Other', at the same time that the binarism is problematically reversed for this time around it is the colonized who is the Subject. This reversal produces an intricate ‘writing back' which is most significant in terms of gender and, in particular, in the controversial construction of the role of women in that process as the text could be argued to reinscribe paradigms of misogyny.

Keywords : Adamastor; The First Life of Adamastor; nationalism; ethnicity; gender.

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