Artur Carlos MaurícioPestana dos Santos

Artur Carlos MaurícioPestana dos Santos also called Pepetela was born in the year 1941. He is a major Angolan fiction writer. source o...

Artur Carlos MaurícioPestana dos Santos also called Pepetela was born in the year 1941. He is a major Angolan fiction writer.

source of picture: espacoescolar.com.br

Pepetela is a white Angolan, who was born in the Benguela, the Portuguese Angola. He fought as a member of the MPLA in the long guerrilla was of the independence of the country. Most of his writing centers on the political history of the country in the 20^th century.

Early Life

Pepetela was born in Benguela, the Portuguese Angola, to white Angolan parents. The family of the mother had been a powerful commercial and military family in the Mocamedes region of the country, his great grandfather have been a major in the army of the country. The family of the mother had been in the country for five generations, meanwhile his father was born in the country to Portuguese parents and spent most of his childhood lives in the mainland Portugal.

Pepetela had a middle class upbringing in Benguela, going to a school where students of all races and classes stay together. He claimed that being raised in Benguela was what gave him the bigger chance to befriend people of other races, due to the mixed narture of the city. He also claimed that he started to develop a class consciousness during his schooling days, observing the difference between his own lifestyle and that of others who lived in the nearby slum areas. In an interview with Michel Leban, Pepetela claimed that the nature of his upbringing what influenced his political views.

At the age of 14, Pepetela made a move to Lubango, to continue with his studies because of the inexistence of a high school in Benguela at that time. In Lubango, Pepetela claimed to have become more aware of the issue of race in the country, as the city was much more segregated that Benguela. While he was in Lubango, Pepetela was influenced by a leftist priest, Padre Noronha, who taught him about the Cuban Revolution and always updated him of the current events and happenings in the country. After his studies in Lubango, Pepetela moved to Portugal for his studies of engineering.

Frontline Experience, Early Novels, and Plays

Pepetela first went to Paris, France in the year 1963 and earned a scholarship to study sociology in Algiers, and it was there that he was approached by Henrique Abranches from the MPLA to assist in creating a Center for the Angolan studies. The center turned out to become the work of Pepetela for the next ten years. Until the year 1969, Pepetela, Abranches and other members of the MPLA worked together to record the cultures of the Angola and the society and Publicize the MPLA hard work. In the year 1969, the center was moved from Algiers to Brazaville in Congo. After making the move, Pepetela became more active in the armed resistance of the MPLA against the Portuguese in the Cabinda region of the country, Angola and on the Eastern Front. In the later part of the 1960s and the early days of 1970s worked as the inspiration for one of his recognized works, the war narratives called Moyombe. At this period, Pepetela also wrote his first novel called MuanaPuo. This novel was written when he was in Algiers and it deals with the culture of his country, with the use of metaphor of the traditional masks of the Chokwe people to open up the different contradictions existing in the culture of the country.

In the year 1972, Pepetela dropped his fuirst published novel, called Aventuras de Ngunga, a novel that he wrote for a small student audience.

When the country gained their independence in the year 1975, Pepetela became the vice Minister of Education in the government of AgostinhoNeto. Pepetela was part of the government of the country for 7 years, resigning in the year 1982 to give more time to his writing. At the time he worked as the Vice Minister in the country, he published many novels, including Moyombe.

The plays he wrote at the time of the government tenure also shows the themes mentioned in As Aventuras de Ngunga. The first of his plays, called Corda was the first ful-length dramatic work to be produced after the independence of the country.

Exit from the Government, Work Published in the 1980s

Pepetela published many book at the time he served with the government of the country as a minister.

After leaving the government of the country in the year 1982¸ Pepetela started to focus more on his writing, starting his work on his most ambitious novel to the current date, Yaka. Yaka was first printed in the year 1984, and it is a sweeping historical novel that examines the lives of a family of Portuguese settlers that came to Benguela in the 19^th century. A clear desire to research in his own origin prompted to the writing of the novel Yaka.

Pepetela kept writing for a decade, as he published O cão e osCaluandas, a novel that examines the inhabitants of Luanda and the changes that they have passed through since the independence of the country, a year after the publication of the novel called Yaka.

In the year 1989, Pepetela published another work called Lueji, a work that is analogous to the A Revoltana Casa dos Ídolos, for the fact that it draws parallel between the history of the country and the modern day happenings in the country. The novel mentions Princess Lueji to be a crucial figure of the country in the 17^th century history of the country.

New Literary Directions and the PrémioCamões

In the 1990s,Pepetela kept on with his writing and he kept on with the exhibition of the history of the country, thpough he also started o look into the situation of politics in the country with a greater sense of irony and criticism. The first novel he wrote in that decade was called Ageração da utopia, which he wrote in the year 1992. The novel addressed several problems that were raised in Moyombe, though from the perspective of the post-independence reality of the country. The civil war of the country and the severe corruption in the government of the country led to the questioning of the revolutionary value that were talked about in the novel.

The next novel of the decade was called O Desejo de Kianda, which was published in the year 1995. This novel continues to show the disillusionment shown in A Geração da Utopia. The novel took more of a magical realist dimension that any other works that was done by Pepetela, as it positioned a situation where many largest building in Luanda collapsed into Kinaxixi square with all the inhabitants left unharmed.

As the situation of the country in the 1990s became more dangerous, Pepetela started spending much time in Lisbon and Brazil. By this time in his life, his writing brought renown to him all through the Portuguese speaking nations. In the year 1997, he was given the award of the Camoes prize, which was the world’s highest honor for Lusophone Literature. Pepetela is the first Angolan and the second in Africa to win the prestigious award.

Satire and Foreign Horizons in the New Millennium

All through the 2000s, Pepetela continued to be a prolific writer. His works started taking satirical dimension with the series of Jaime Bundanovekls, detective novels that cast a satirical view on the life in Luanda in the new decade. He published many typesof novels in the decade. His first book to be published in the 2000s was A Montanha da ÁguaLilás (2000), which was a children’s book that also took a view at the beginning of social injustice. In the year 2005, after the book Jaime Bunda has enjoyed success, he published another book called Predadores, which was his sharpest critique of the ruling class of the country Angola.

The final year of the 2000s, saw the continuation of his career as a writer, with his novels showing up in the year 2007, 2008 as well as 2009.

In addition to the dedication to his novel, Pepetela also has been teaching for thr past few decades. Since the 1980, he has been a professor of sociology in the faculty of Architecture at the University of Angola, which is now called University of AgostinhoNeto.

Novels

Ø As Aventuras de Ngunga, 1972

Ø MuanaPuó, 1978

Ø Mayombe, 1980

Ø O Cão e osCaluandas, 1985

Ø Yaka, 1985

Ø Luandando, 1990

Ø Lueji, o Nascimento de um Império, 1990

Ø A Geração da Utopia, 1992

Ø O Desejo de Kianda, 1995

Ø Parábola do Cágado Velho, 1996

Ø A GloriosaFamília, 1997