Grieving memories, subjugated voices: maternal silence in the narrative of Hatoum and Lobo Antunes
Abstract
In this study we will seek to approximate some hermeneutic lines of the novels Tale of a certain Orient (1989), by Milton Hatoum, and Yesterday I haven’t seen you in Babylon (2006), by António Lobo Antunes. In both narratives, the motherhood of two characters is marked by silence about their paternal identity and the tragic fate that befalls the daughters of both women: Soraya Ângela, the deaf-mute girl in Hatoum’s novel, dies in childhood as a result of a serious accident; Ana Emília’s unnamed daughter, in the loboantunian plot, commits suicide at the age of fifteen. In this context, we intend to delve into memorialistic mechanisms that configure the way the two fictional mothers, built under the auspices of silence, are represented in the clash with father absence, tragedy and death.
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References
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