The eve of home: about the poetics of Conceição Lima and certain “good people”

Abstract

Starting from an intense disgust and intense restlessness with the directions that have been taken in the country where I was born, since the last presidential elections, I try, in this article, to think about how the poetry of Conceição Lima, deeply linked to São Tomé and Príncipe, with whose history and whose future is engaged, moves away from the risks that nationalism entails, rejecting the simplistic dichotomies and manichaeism typical of a certain “logic of coloniality”, so explicit today in Brazil. In order to demonstrate such a detachment I use concepts that are highly regarded by thinkers who, like me, believe in the necessity of refusing the closure of cultures in their own universe, as well as the intolerance and prejudice that come from the belief in absolute truths and definitive dogmas. Hybridism and interculturality are some of these concepts, which give me suggestions to observe how the poetry of Lima goes beyond certain frontiers.