"Se as vozes não voltam não se escreve este livro": África, sobrevivências e a monumentalização do nome em Comissão das Lágrimas de António Lobo Antunes

Comissão das lágrimas (2011) marks an exception among António Lobo Antunes' novels. The continuities are innumerable, strictly connected to the permanence of Africa at the centre of the narrative in one of the most singular works of contemporary Portuguese literature. Nevertheless, the choice of one of the darkest periods in post-colonial Angolan history (the massacre of 27th May) entails a concern for the narrative incorporating highly risky memories, thus subtracting them from the orchestrated oblivion and the definitive silence. The present essay incorporates the topic of the massacre, deepening the role of chaotic voices from this traumatic past. The critical question of the work, as well as its interpretative challenge, is whether it is possible to articulate a memory in face of the definitive fracture between subject and experience, that is, the impossibility to witness?