Notes about the concept of Antonio Candido’s “literary system” in the Portuguese-Language African Literatures Studies

Abstract

In Formação da literatura brasileira, Antonio Candido proposes the concept of literary system, defi ning his study as an investigation into the development of this system in Brazil. In the present article, I deal with the appropriation of Candido’s approach in Portuguese-African Literatures Studies. At fi rst, I discuss aspects of Candido’s argument and introduce some contributions from Luiz Costa Lima (Pensando nos trópicos). Then, I describe how the appropriation of the literary system concept and the idea of “formation” is taking place in Portuguese African Literature Studies, mainly in Rita Chaves’s (A formação do romance angolano) and Benjamin Abdala Jr.’s (Literatura, história e política) works. This strategy aims to acknowledge common aspects of literatures from countries that experienced colonialism, as well as to glimpse a specifi c moment of the literary criticism in these countries.