Magic Stones and Flying Snakes ― Gender and the 'postcolonial Exotic' in the Work of Paulina Chiziane and Lfdia Jorge

This monograph is the first to identify an important theoretical overlap between Anglo-Saxon and Lusophone postcolonial theories: the systematic neglect of gender and sexual variables in the analysis of the marketing of cultural difference in the post colonial era. Drawing on the theoretical work of Graham Huggan and Boaventura de Sousa Santos, the author of this study discusses the political significance of this neglect by focusing on the asymmetrical positions occupied by two widely acclaimed Lusophone women writers, Paulina Chiziane of Mozambique and Lídia Jorge of Portugal. The book asks how these two contemporary writers deal with master narratives such as Lusofonia, exoticism, capitalism and post colonialism in their novels, and examines the implications of placing gender and sexual difference at the heart of the ‘post colonial exotic’.

Ana Margarida Martins holds a PhD in Mozambican and Portuguese literatures from the University of Manchester. She has also worked in Portugal as a teacher of Portuguese literature and the English language.