“A woman who never bended; who had no master nor God” – clippings of the mystic queen Nzinga in the literature of Agalusa, Mussa and Eugénia Neto

Abstract

The mythic Nzinga Mbandi, or Queen Ginga, was the leader of a huge territory in 18^th century. A large amount of the slaves who came to Brazil are from the Bantu region – dominated by Ginga then. Her story is as glorious as the history of Africa. Not by coincidence a large amount of historians study her, as well as hundreds of writers have already narrated and sung her milestones. For this analysis, three authors were chosen: Angolan José Eduardo Agualusa and his historic novel A Rainha Ginga: e de como os africanos inventaram o mundo (2014); Brazilian Alberto Mussa and his detective novel O trono da Rainha Jinga, (1999); and the Portuguese rooted in Angola, Eugénia Neto, and her poem “Poema à Mãe Angolana”, released in 1976, in the background of the war for Independence in Angola. Two movements were outlined here: first, it was historically described the figure of the Queen so secondly we could sketch the clippings of the texts. Both Agualusa and Mussa tend to show the power of Queen represented by her “male” force, once she takes leadership in a context of patriarchal lineage. Nevertheless, Eugénia Neto humanizes the figure of Nzinga as the big “Mother of Angola”, marking her female characteristics. Independently of the judgment, this paper aims to notice how authors from distinct nationalities and genders do construct the image of the African ruler, mixing history and fiction in a fertile ballet of epic and poetic dimensions.