18

In July 1497, four ships, under the command of thePortuguese navigator Vasco Da Gama, set sailfrom Lisbon en route to India. The ships rounded

the Cape of Good Hope and travelled up the south-eastern coast of Africa. On January 11th 1498, short ofwater, they put to shore at a place they called “land ofthe good people” and “river of copper.” This was thebeginning of a long relationship between Mozambiqueand Portugal. Gold, later ivory, ensured Portugal’scontinued interest. In the 1700’s the opening up of theAmericas and the Caribbean offered aneven more lucrative trade and duringthe next hundred years over onemillion Mozambicans crossed theAtlantic into slavery. Mozambiqueformally became a Portuguese colonyin the 19th century.

Lília Momplé was born in 1935. Afterattending secondary school in the capitalLourenco Marques (now Maputo), shecompleted a degree in social work inPortugal and lived in Lisbon, London andBrazil before returning to Maputo in 1981.Six years before her return, theIndependent People’s Republic ofMozambique was proclaimed in 1975 andSamora Machel was sworn in as thePresident of the new marxist state. In theyears that followed, the country supported therevolutionary movements in Rhodesia and in SouthAfrica, and, as a consequence, suffered considerabledevastation from South African and Rhodesiangovernment–supported offensives.

A TROUBLED HISTORYLília Momplé lived through those years of turmoil.Talking of her novel Neighbours: The Story of aMurder, which was published in 1995, she says: “Ilived through decades when South Africa did as itpleased in Mozambique in order to protect the interestof the apartheid regime. During this period manyMozambicans were killed or had their lives destroyed.

It is to them I dedicate this book.”

The events in Neighbours take place on theeve of the festival of Eid, a major Islamicfeast. Skillfully weaving together presentevents and past memories, much ofMozambique’s complex history is revealedthrough three different sets of characters, inthree separate family homes.

Narguiss, a mother, who “never wantedanything to do with politics,” is concernedthat her three daughters remainunmarried.

In an apartment opposite, a youngmarried couple, Leia and Januário,eagerly await the birth of their second

child. As a young boy, Januário fled theravages of war in the remote forest village where hewas born.

In another part of town, in the home she shares withher husband Dupont, Mena prepares a meal for himand two other men, while they nervously await thearrival of two white South Africans. Mena feels thedesire “to cry for something that is about to happen,

living in the shadow ofColonialism

Apartheid

The Mozambican Writer, Lília Momplé

andB

ook cover courtesy of Heinem

ann

Africa December 04 lppl 8/10/04 1:05 pm Page 18

but she doesn’t know what, and it is this that makes iteven more terrifying.” Romu, one of the three menwho await the South Africans, is motivated by hatredof his own race. His colleague Zalíua is motivated bya greedy thirst for revenge against a system whichuncovered his corruption, while Dupont, Mena’shusband, has become an accomplice of the other twobecause of his greed for money.

They plan to kill Leia and Januário who, while notinvolved in political activity, live next door to membersof the African National Congress (ANC). This is part ofa plan to weed out support for the ANC inMozambique. Before morning a number of lives willhave changed forever, because of actions motivatedby racial hatred, greed and fear.

NOT KNOWING ONE’S PLACELília Momplé won the Caine Prize for African Writing in2001. Her award winning Celina’s Banquet tells thestory of how a mother, Dona Violante, makes a beautifuldress for her daughter, Celina, to wear to her highschool graduation banquet. This is the culmination ofDona Violante’s long hours working as a dressmakerto earn the money to send her daughter to highschool.

Celina and an Indian are the only coloured students ina class where “she was able to read in the expressionsof most of her colleagues and teachers the interrogation,‘But what is that mulatto girl doing here? Does she notknow this isn’t her place?.’” A recurring theme throughthis and other writings of Lília Momplé is theMozambican people’s own sense of the superiority ofwhite people; a feature not uncommon among peoplewho have been colonized. Her mother advises her:“Study girl. Only education can obliterate our colour.”

It seems the mother’s dream of her daughter going touniversity in Portugal, just like a white person, is aboutto be fulfilled. Her daughter, she believes, will attendthe graduation ball, the major social event of the year,alongside the richest and most important members ofcolonial society. However, on the day of the ball,Celina and the Indian student are called to the head-master’s office. He explains that the people who areattending the banquet are not used to socializing withcoloured people; “to avoid irritation on all sides, wethought it better if you did not come to the banquet.”

Lília Momplé writes in Portuguese, the officiallanguage of Mozambique. She was SecretaryGeneral of the Mozambique Writers’ Association from1995 to 2001 and President from 1997 to 1999. Shelives with her husband in Maputo. Her novelNeighbours and some of her short stories have beenskillfully translated into English. �

19

Helen Fallon is Deputy Librarian at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. She has taught at the University of Sierra Leone.

The “land of the good people” as Vasco da Gama, in thefifteenth century, called Mozambique, is on the IndianOcean coast of Africa. Maputo, it’s capital, is a busy,modern city. (photo: wanadoo.nl)

Lília Momplé; “I lived through decades whenSouth Africa did as it pleased in Mozambiquein order to protect the interest of the apartheidregime.” (photo: Heinemann)

Africa December 04 lppl 8/10/04 1:05 pm Page 19