Abstract

PAIVA, Daniel. Border and contact in O Meu Nome é Legião. Diacrítica [online]. 2013, vol.27, n.3, pp.183-201. ISSN 0807-8967.

This essay intends to review the postcolonial relationships present in António Lobo Antunes’s O Meu Nome é Legião. The polyphonic narrative of this work allows an overlapping of different social representations and spatialities, creating a complex image of the postcolonial condition in 21^st century Lisbon. The novel shows how the mental borders of colonialism are transposed into the metropolitan urban space and how they shape it. The social relationships of the characters oscillate between alterity and hybridism in spaces that fluctuate between border and heterotopia. We will begin by discussing these four concepts and then proceed to reflect upon postcolonial aspects that are recurrent in Lobo Antunes’s writings. In the second part of the essay, we will focus on the novel itself, analysing the social and geographical representations of the characters.

Keywords : Lobo Antunes; O Meu Nome é Legião; hybridism; alterity; border; heterotopia.

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