Paulina ChizianeRezensionen

Um dos romances moçambicanos mais renomados do século XX, agora em edição de bolso.
Da vencedora do Prêmio Camões 2021.

Rami é uma esposa fiel e subserviente. Ela faz o que manda a tradição, mas nem assim consegue ser amada por Tony, com quem é casada há vinte anos. Certo dia, Rami descobre que o marido tem várias amantes ― e filhos ― por todo o Moçambique, e decide conhecê-las uma a uma. “Eu, Rami, sou a primeira-dama, a rainha mãe. […] O nosso lar é um polígono de seis pontos. É polígamo. Um hexágono amoroso”, diz. A partir desse encontro surpreendente, todas terão suas vidas completamente transformadas.
De origem humilde, Paulina Chiziane foi a primeira mulher moçambicana a publicar um romance ― apesar de não se considerar romancista, mas uma contadora de histórias. Em Niketche, ela mistura bom humor, consciência social e lirismo para traçar um vigoroso painel da condição feminina e da sociedade de seu país.

Rami and Tony have been married for twenty years and have five children. He is a senior police officer, and they live comfortably, if not extravagantly, in Maputo, Mozambique. Lately he has been working late and is often absent when Rami needs him. Soon she discovers that he has a mistress of long-standing, and she goes to confront this other woman. Julieta also has five children with Tony and is pregnant with her sixth. At first the women come to fisticuffs, but eventually realize that they have both been betrayed, for Tony has more families stashed around the city. Rami, as first wife, decides to bring the women together for mutual support and to organize this haphazard polygamous marriage into a more traditional form that grants the women some rights.

Although it took me a while to get used to the author's writing style, the plot was a page-turner from the beginning. Rami's struggle to come to terms with her husband's infidelity, and her fight for not only her rights, but the rights of all her husband's wives, is at once universal and unique. The author writes from a strong feminist perspective, but with an acknowledgment of regional differences, the influence of tradition, and the legacy of colonialism. Recommended for anyone interested in gender politics, the lives of women in Mozambique, or simply a poignant, funny satire set in Africa.

"Eu, mulher... por uma nova visão do mundo" é um testemunho escrito por Paulina Chiziane em 1992 e publicado pela primeira vez em 1994, por iniciativa da UNESCO. Foi lançada a primeira edição brasileira pela Nandyala em 2013. Nele, Paulina discute a mulher, seu desenvolvimento e da sociedade.

Rami is a very ordinary 21st century middle-aged, middle-class housewife: convent-educated, with five kids, a nice house in Maputo, and a husband, Tony, who has made a very successful career in the police force. But she isn't happy: Tony has been neglecting her somewhat, and often only seems to be using the family home as a place to take baths and change his clothes. Women-friends advise her to win her husband back by taking courses in erotic practices or by consulting witches, but that doesn't get her anywhere. When she investigates where Tony is actually spending his time, she's alarmed to discover that as well as his legal household with her, he has been maintaining four other unofficial wives scattered around the city, each with a house and children.

Chiziane follows Rami through the process of developing a conscious understanding of the role she and her "rivals" have been manipulated into playing in Mozambican society, where there is a gender-imbalance caused by war and migration, as well as complicated intersections of traditional Bantu culture and colonialist Catholic ideas under a surface coating of FRELIMO Marxism, and the other, older, set of collisions between the largely matriarchal traditions in the north of the country and the more patriarchal culture of the south.

Rami gets together with the other women to take control of their own lives, gaining economic independence with the help of a mutual microcredit scheme and gradually manoeuvring Tony into a position where he becomes aware of the harm he has done through his irresponsible actions and his reliance on the principle of male infallibility.

There's a lot of politics and sociology to get through here, but it's presented very lightly, in the framework of a story that is effectively a romantic comedy, albeit one that doesn't try to conceal the very real oppression and suffering that is going on as a result of the way women are treated in contemporary African society. Chiziane is extremely good at what she does, there are lively characters who never descend into stereotypes, there is clever, funny dialogue, and there are some glorious angry rants and poetic excursions — altogether a very interesting and enjoyable book.

Her writing is very expressive. Her metaphors are really the highlight.

This superb novel, written by Mozambique's first published female novelist and expertly translated from the Portuguese by David Brookshaw, is narrated by Rami, a modest southern Mozambican woman who has been faithfully married to a police chief in the capital of Maputo for the past 20 years, but is disturbed by the increasing frequency of Tony's nights spent away from home and his inattention to her. She soon learns that he has taken on another lover, which is not uncommon in this patriarchal society that accepts and celebrates male infidelity, permits polygamy as a cultural norm, and looks the other way when wives are abused and beaten by their husbands, while expecting these women to serve their men the best parts of their homecooked meals while kneeling in servitude and gratitude. Rami encounters her rival, and after a violent argument they become allies. Soon Rami finds out that Tony has taken on three other lovers, none of whom are completely satisfied with their lot. After he refuses to give up his lovers Rami befriends these four women, who come up with a plot to confront Tony as one, and shame him into becoming a respectable provider and lover to all of them. Tony, however, has other ideas.

"The First Wife" portrays the repressed lives of women in modern Mozambican society while also being easily readable and often lighthearted and humorous, and demonstrates the power of collective action of women in a society that falsely claims that it respects and values them. Despite being nearly 500 pages in length this was a quick and very enjoyable and educational novel, and I hope to read more of Paulina Chiziane's work.

update: I just recommended this novel in the "Read Women" group, where we're currently reading [b:So Long a Letter|151374|So Long a Letter|Mariama Bâ|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1394825021s/151374.jpg|146098] by [a:Mariama Bâ|502766|Mariama Bâ|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1263598939p2/502766.jpg], a classic novel about polygamy in Africa. I wanted to recommend both of them on my timeline--and here is my review of The First Wife:

I loved reading this book. It delighted me over and over again for its brash heroine who, even though she finds herself in a loveless marriage, and even though her entire family tells her that what she has is all she deserves, refuses to believe it. She then goes about making her life better, all on her own, following a path that is joyful, funny, bawdy, women-centered, and in every way satisfying to me as a reader.

This is a feminist book in all the best ways. Of course one of the core questions of feminism as a philosophy is how culturally inclusive it can be, before it devolves into just another kind of cultural oppression where western white women are telling everyone else what to think about themselves. It's important to honor differences in sexuality, gender identity, race, class, nationality, and religion. So as I read, I didn't want to assume I understood more than I do.

And indeed there were a lot of cultural differences that divided me from the lived experience of the protagonist as described here. Some the cultural practices are so unique that they aren't translated--for example, there is no word in my language for "the right of a dead man's brother to have sex with his widow." I have very little idea, much less experience, with what it would be like to live in a culture where men have such absolute power over women as they do in this novel--so much power that there is a running trope through this novel where any woman who eats the best part of a chicken instead of feeding it to her man is punished in some absurdly excessive way, usually involving death.

Even so, I kept thinking: "I get this." And: "I've felt this way." Chiziane over and over again points out the absurdity of these repressive and misogynistic cultural practices, in ways that are light-hearted and farcical and that are also disarming--Chiziane allows Rami, her protagonist, to confront these practices, point out their selfish contradictions, and to disarm them, one by one. Rami is my latest hero, for the way she takes on the bad guys fearlessly, and for the way, in spite of all odds being against her, she wins in the end. This novel reminded me that some things about living under patriarchy really are universal.

My Thoughts are @ Bridget Blogs Books

Not just about polygamy, but about what it is to be a woman. An amazing book. Five women in Mozambique share a husband. When the social traditions of polygamy get to be too much for them, they plot their revenge. Excellent.

Astounding fictional recounting of what polygamy doest to the body, heart, and soul. Read this and forget about the front page of any newspaper in the country.

Delfina é uma mulher bonita, «uma negra daquelas que os brancos gostam». A história de vida desta Delfina, «dos contrates, dos conflitos, das confusões e contradições», é a história da mulher africana, a história da apocalíptica perda do sonho. Esta mulher debate-se entre «escolher o caminho do sofrimento», o amor que sente por José dos Montes, e «eliminar a sua raça para ganhar a liberdade», procurando o homem branco que lhe dará o alimento e o conforto que deseja. Mas o que é o amor para a mulher negra? Na terra onde as mulheres se casam por encomenda na adolescência? O problema arrasta-se ao longo do livro, aparentemente sem solução: «viver em dois mundos é o mesmo que viver em dois corpos, não se pode. Tu és negra, jamais serás branca». Mesmo assim a mulher negra «procura um filho mulato, para aliviar o negro da sua pele como quem alivia as roupas de luto». O sufoco das palavras outrora silenciadas, a valentia e a frontalidade gritam alto nos romances de Paulina Chiziane. Neste diálogo consigo própria, a conhecida escritora moçambicana, mistura imaginação, fantástico, misticismo, num retrato poderoso e peculiar da sociedade e da mulher africanas.

Esta novela cuenta la mayor tragedia acaecida al pueblo mozambiqueño en las últimas décadas: la Guerra civil. Destrucción. Miseria. Sufrimiento. Humillación. Odio. Superstición. Éste es el dantesco escenario que encontramos en Vientos del Apocalipsis. Las palabras, crudas, incisivas, delirantes de la autora nos llevan a cuestionarnos cuánto hay de ficción en esta narración apocalíptica, en la que la guerra más absurda la viven dos pueblos, los mananga y los macuácua, que ignoran quién los ataca y quién los defiende.

Con Niketche (la danza del amor), Paulina Chiziane compone el retrato admirable de un crecimiento personal cuyo eje es la solidaridad femenina. En esta novela son las mujeres quienes construyen, quienes siembran y recogen, quienes poco a poco, casi sin darse cuenta, cambian el mundo, mientras los hombres se limitan a depredarlo. Rami, una mujer casada, obediente y sumisa, descubre de repente que su marido, Tony, mantiene a un puñado de amantes con las que además ha tenido numerosos hijos. Al principio Rami se enfrenta a sus rivales, pero al conocerlas se da cuenta de que, como ella misma, no son más que víctimas de un mundo en el que solamente los hombres dan sentido a la existencia de las mujeres. Qué hacer entonces? Pelearse con ellas es inútil, y además injusto, porque el verdadero culpable de su situación es evidentemente él. Ignoraralas? Imposible. La única alternativa es convertirlas en sus aliadas. Con un estilo capaz de alternar lo descarnado con lo delicado, lo austero con lo lírico, la autora consigue habla de sufirmiento y de represión femeninnos sin caer en el panfleto, sin ceder a la corrección política, sin renunciar a su idea de feminidad.