Casa da Memória: um estudo comparativo entre os romances Um rio chamado tempo, uma casa chamada terra de Mia Couto e Ópera dos Mortos de Autran Dourado

Abstract

This research proposes the comparative analysis between the books “Um rio chamado tempo, Uma casa chamada terra” (A River Called Time), by the Mozambican writer Mia Couto, and “Ópera dos Mortos” (The voices of the dead), by the Brazilian writer Autran Dourado. By reading such novels we may be able to look for common elements of the cultures from the societies they represent: a small city in Minas Gerais countryside and a provincial community in Mozambique. In order to achieve this aim, we are going to analyze the universal aspects that we believe to be recurrent in both narratives: tradition, which can be defined as a whole of rules and behaviors imposed to the characters; the houses, - Nyumba-Kaya, the Mozambican house, and the Honorio’s house, in Minas Gerais – which may be set as more than habitations, but a key elements to understand the narrated characters. Finally, death and how it is experienced: sometimes as the end, sometimes as a new beginning in which there is a possibility for another existence. In addition, there are particularities that each element presume when in contact with the culture and habits in which they are inserted in.