Nas dobras do tempo: imagens do tempo africano na obra de Uanhenga Xitu

Abstract

ABSTRACT

This research consists of a reflection on African time and how its stereotypical concept can be linked to the colonization process and the concepts of race and civilization, negatively interfering in the construction of a Modern Africa. The works Vozes na Sanzala (1974), Maka na Sanzala (1979), and Cultos Especiais (1997) by Uanhenga Xitu are analyzed, highlighting the presence of multiple temporal structures and calendar systems that differ from the Western way of understanding time. Uanhenga Xitu, an Angolan writer, stood out in the 1970s, presenting prose committed to reviving tradition. His narratives, highlighted here, reveal the Angolan man displaced in his own environment, due to the imposition of another's culture. His texts are marked by both Western and African times, showing the border field in which the author lives. The proposal developed is to discuss the colonization of time and give new meaning to the concept of African time, contributing to a better understanding of the work of Uanhenga Xitu, investigating how the temporal element is fundamental to understanding the Angolan world and how it contributes as an alternative way of establishing duration. Through anthropological/cultural history approaches as in Joseph Adjaye; social/political history as in Keletso Atkins and also philosophical/theological as in John Mbiti, among others, reflections were made to evaluate how the West, implementing a unique notion of time, created ideological discourses capable of dominating and above all eliminating other alternative cultures of time, establishing a temporal hierarchy and transforming time into an instrument of power. This research also includes a brief commentary on the development of Angolan literature, the life and work of Uanhenga Xitu and how African people perceive time, based on studies by Onyeacha (2010), Fu Kiau (1994), Hampaté Bá (2003), Mbiti (1991), Adjaye (1994), among others.

Keywords: Uanhenga Xitu; African Time; Colonization of Time; African Studies.