Memória, identidade e morte em A Noite das Mulheres Cantoras de Lídia Jorge

Resumo

In A Noite das Mulheres Cantoras (The Night of the Female Singers), Lídia Jorge proceeds to a critical reading of the Portuguese contemporaneity, rescuing from the shadows the omissions of memory regarding its colonial past. Unfolding in different time plans, this narrative in the first person seeks to battle oblivion and regain emotions, through the evocation of a personal and collective memory, marked by the unspoken and what is spoken between the lines. There are thus two main interplays in the narrative: on the one hand, sexuality and the threat it poses to the ambition of the conductor; on the other hand, the colonial experience, lived either in the condition of a “retornado” (Solange, Gisela and the Alcides Sisters) or in the condition of an immigrant (Madalena Micaia). Finally, it emphasizes the centrality of the idea of death – real and figurative – in the development of the narrative, dragging feelings of loss, loneliness and despair, but also of renewal and growth.