Literature from Portuguese-speaking countries

Analysis of short narratives by Chinese higher education students

Abstract

In the Literature of Portuguese-Speaking Countries curricular unit, Chinese students in the 3rd year of Applied Portuguese Language [LPA] at ESECS/IPL, translation branch, analyze short narratives, applying some of the narrative analysis concepts worked on during the semester, as one of the core points of the curricular program.

In the even semester of the 2022-2023 academic year – among the vast list of short narratives appropriate to their level of linguistic proficiency in the Portuguese language – the students' selections fell on two Mozambican authors – Mia Couto and Luís Bernardo Honwana – and two Angolans – José Luandino Vieira and José Eduardo Agualusa.

The analyses of the stories reflect the capacity for analyzing literary language, its symbolism, transmitted values and emotional charge, and the great intervention in most of the narratives written during the colonial period or immediately after, such as opening horizons and triggering the readers' consciousness to the need for active intervention. In any of the stories analyzed (“A Fogueira”; “O último aviso do corvo falador”; “A menina de futuro torcido” / “Nós matámos o cão tinhoso”; “As mãos dos pretos” / “Estória da galinha e do ovo” / “Por que é tão importante ver as estrelas”), the richness of the students' reading deserves a careful look and reveals much of the analytical capacity of the Eastern perspective.

Literature thus shows itself in its maximum aspect as a transmitter of values, cultural references and a source of reflection on social and powerful relations in the world.