Childhood narratives

space and time in Os da minha ruaby Ondjaki

Abstract

This article, in the context of African children's literature in Portuguese language, based mainly in Os da minha rua(2007), aims to analyze how Ondjaki's work contributes to expanding the corpus of stories written in and about Luanda, amplifying voices for the resignification of the past and to bring to the present an expanded perception of their society. Based on the importance of several factors about storytelling, so that they can create images that escape stereotypes, and borrowing Adichie's position in The danger of a single story(2018), this article is divided into two parts: Who tells and how they are told; and When (where) they are told. In the first part, autofiction as an author's strategy is going to be analyzed, the book brings to the narrative scene the figure of the author, narrator-character-infant, as well as the author's memory where the autofiction explored as a narrative strategy is configured. In the second part, the article will address issues related to childhood and its strategies to signify the world around them. The child's point of view helps to understand Os da minha ruaas a chronotope, in which space and time are inseparable in childhood experience. It also describes an analysis of the relations between the space of Luanda and childhood time, locating the book in the contemporary context.