Luanda: urban dynamics and cultural representations

Abstract

The city of Luanda is a main character in the work of Luandino Vieira, whose stories invoke the musseques (slums) where the physical and human spaces complement each other to portray life in the colonial capital. Ondjaki and Manuel Rui incorporate the idea of a multifaceted and culturally diverse city, building an image of Luanda as the symbol of the Angolan nation, the capital that is writing its recent history in post-colonization, a creole city in cultural terms that promotes globalization. Luanda is a vibrant and complex character city, depicting the vicissitudes of life, (neocolonial) decadence or violence, characteristics of other African cities, not to mention the vital cultural and architectural aspects. The documentary Oxalá cresçam pitangas (2006), produced and directed by the Angolan writer Ondjaki and by Kiluanje Liberdade, adds social concerns to a very particular aesthetic vision, showing different ways of living in / and interpreting the city of Luanda, in a country that easily adapts itself to the creative needs of the people and the various languages. The action of the documentary is enriched by creative participants, sometimes operating at the margins of society and public intervention, focusing on individual and collective trajectories, exploring unique and alternative productions in a city full of possibilities, but also fraught with discrepancies. The Angolan capital is a mosaic of cultures, a sample of the country’s cultural plurality, a city where, during the long civil war, many of the displaced gathered in search of peace and a life away from military chaos. This article aims to observe and analyze experiences of colonial and post-colonial Luanda through selected texts by Luandino Vieira, Manuel Rui and Ondjaki, who present different ways of portraying and reading the Angolan capital, its inhabitants and their techniques of survival.

and public intervention, focusing on individual and collective trajectories, exploringunique and alternative productions in a city full of possibilities, but also fraught withdiscrepancies. The Angolan capital is a mosaic of cultures, a sample of the country’scultural plurality, a city where, during the long civil war, many of the displaced gatheredin search of peace and a life away from military chaos. This article aims to observeand analyze experiences of colonial and post-colonial Luanda through selected texts byLuandino Vieira, Manuel Rui and Ondjaki, who present different ways of portraying andreading the Angolan capital, its inhabitants and their techniques of survival.