Cape Verde: oral traditions and literature of Portuguese language

• Grant number: 08/01003-5
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: June 01, 2008
• End date: May 31, 2010
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Other Vernacular Literatures
• Principal Investigator: Simone Caputo Gomes
• Grantee: Simone Caputo Gomes
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Based on a previous research of Cape-Verdean texts which record Creole oral traditions and giving emphasis to manifestations found in the Island of Santiago, home of Cape-Verdean civilization, the proposal of the study we intend to carry out will consist firstly on exploratory visits to centers of documentation of Creole culture in that island, mainly the intangible (immaterial) patrimony of the young Cape-Verdean nation. Contacts with the direction of these centers and with bastions of the gathering of oral traditions in Cape Verde and of the cultural production, previously scheduled, will also be established, as well as the visit to communities where determined traditions still exist. The expansion of the previous bibliographical survey about this research theme and the acquisition of materials (printed, digital, audio-visual) is another important aim of this proposal. The literature in Portuguese language will work out as a cultured guide and vehicle to make a profound study of the oral traditions (popular, in Creole language) that the literary discourse records and preserves, with the aim of claiming Cape-Verdean identity and diminishing the distance between orality and writing. The contact in loco with Cape-Verdean writers who (re)present oral traditions in their works, as well as with the producers and transmitters (people and communities) of these traditions will be decisive to the development of the project as well. (AU)