José Eduardo Agualusa et sa Robinsonne Ludo

Abstract

From a cross-reading with Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, we consider José Eduardo Agualusa’s novel, Teoria Geral do Esquecimento (2012), as a postmodern Robinsonade. Indeed, the author builds his character, Ludovica Fernandes Mano, as a castaway from Portuguese colonization in Angola, after the independence of the African country. She lived as a recluse for twenty-eight years in her apartment in Luanda, before getting out with the help of a young boy, Sabalu. From then on, a postcolonial reversal takes place, since this character, although he corresponds to the figure of Robinson’s Friday, is not in a subordinate position. The relationship that is established between Ludo and Sabalu is made up of mutual aid, care and reciprocal exchanges, a far cry from the unequivocal and ethnocentric relationship of Defoe’s novel.