Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to reflect on the circulation of ideas between African and diaspora intellectuals in the writings of the poet, journalist and Mozambican militant Noémia de Sousa (Catembe, 1926 - Lisbon, 2002) since her first publications in Mozambican press and in other media until 1975.

Paper long abstract:

Could we consider that in Sousa's writings we see the emergence of an outline of a nation's project built from the intertwining of gender and negritude ideas, making clear the circulation of ideas between African and Mozambican intellectuals? Sousa was an active contributor in the Associação Africana and the Mozambican periodical "O Brado Africano", in which most of her poems were published, between 1948 and 1951. After that period, she lived in Portugal and France, working as a journalist and keeping in touch with intellectuals linked to the independence struggles. Outside of Mozambique, her poems were published in anthologies and there were mimeographed copies of a book called "Sangue Negro", spread around by admirers of her work. Here we present some considerations about this militant character and the political awareness of Sousa's writings in the Brado Africano editions. This includes her role as a social agent disputing multiple spaces with different actors, such as European whites from various backgrounds- especially Portuguese women, mestiços, blacks and Indians. Also, we seek to identify and understand her trajectory since 1951, discussing her connection with the students of the Centro de Estudos Africanos and the Casa dos Estudantes do Império, as well as the process of symbolic construction of the figure of Sousa, emphasizing her role in what later was designated as "Mozambican national culture". Through the themes that the poet presents in her poems and in her writings in newspapers, it is evident a multiplicity of subjects and strategies of resistance against the colonial situation.