The damage/years of colonization, post-colonial identities and the search for guinendade in the Last Tragedy of Abdulai Sila

Abstract

The present study deals with the nation's narrative as a collective representation with the theme of violence and trauma against the Guinean people. The text allows the encounter between colonial discourses, prejudices and traumatic effects on African identity, asking how far the nationalist projects and dreams in Guinea-Bissau were really achieved and how the past contributed to the political instability and the economic failures experienced in contemporary times. In this sense, we take as a corpus of analysis the fictional work The Last Tragedy by Abdulai Sila (2002), voice of a complex and current society, whose texts specifically address the attempt to constitute a reflection on the national identity and the history of guineans in contexts post-colonial. Artistic production – particularly literature here – emerges as part of the process of consolidating identities, through its character of representation. Abdulai Sila's Last Tragedy (2002) seems to seek answers that justify the origin of the country's common adversities today, in a still alive and present past.