(Re)claiming the Heritage: The Narratives of Manuel Veiga

Abstract: Manuel Veiga’s concern in Odju d’Agu and Diário das Ilhas is a specific Cape Verde to replace the colonial legacy. Odju d’Agu is a textual prescription for becoming Cape Verdean. It is rooted in the language and approach of Cape Verde’s oral storytelling tradition and framed with a tale-telling session to show that the tradition can serve to (dis)articulate the hierarchies of the past and point the way to a progressive future. Diári das Ilhas is a textual itinerary for the discovery of Cape Verde. It imaginatively and poetically (re)invents a past for the archipelago that showcases the importance of Cape Verde’s African heritage and gives voice to Jorge Barbosa and a number of other Cape Verdean poets. In both of those texts, Manuel Veiga seeks to address the issue of a postcolonial identity for Cape Verde, (re)capture an historical initiative for the Cape Verdean community, and (re)site Cape Verde as the locus of its own experience.