The anatomy of failure: Transcolonial approaches to (not quite) decolonial past from Filinto de Barros’ Kikia Matcho to Tony Tcheka’s Quando os cravos vermelhos cruzaram o Geba

Abstract

The article presents a comparative reading of two books referring to Guinea-Bissau’s post-independence history: Filinto de Barros’ novel Kikia Matcho (1997) and Tony Tcheka’s sequence of four short stories Quando os cravos vermelhos cruzaram o Geba (2020). The analysis is based on the notion of transcoloniality understood here as a concept of literary criticism referring to the transformative aspect of the literary work in a society struggling to heal its wounds, achieve reconciliation, and overcome postcolonial stagnation. Across an interval of almost a quarter of a century, the two books analysed inquire about the causes of the collective and individual failure in the early postcolonial period. This generalised failure involves not only the ex-combatants of the anticolonial war, unable to rebuild their lives in peacetime, but also the next generation, grappling with circumstances such as migration and deficient education. The West African decolonial conundrum involves tribal identities at odds with the dominant postcolonial nation-building utopia and the revival of traditions at odds with modernity. Finally, in Tcheka’s approach, the vision of Africa marked by developmental impasses reaches a transcolonial stage as he gives voice to the marginalised Guinean destinies, offering a fuller account of social complexity, internal contradictions, and zones of silence.