Mahezu: tradições angolanas. Capa e ilustrações de José Antunes.

Lisbon, Serviço de Pubicações Ultramarinas, Procuradoria dos Estudantes Ultramarinos, 1966.. FIRST EDITION. Large 8°, original illustrated wrappers (slightly soiled). Front wrapper and illustrations by José Antunes. Title-page, section titles and illustrations in text printed in green and black. In very good condition. 70 pp., (3 ll.), 8 ll. color plates. *** FIRST EDITION of a collection of traditional Angolan stories, freely retold. The author notes that he read Chatelain's Contos populares de Angola, Ennis' Umbundu Folk Tales from Angola, and other works, and "construí as histórias que aí ficam. Nelas, o folclore foi, sobretudo, sugestão" (p. 71).Mário António (Mário António Fernandes de Oliveira, Maquela do Zombo, 1934-Lisbon, 1989), poet, essayist and short-story writer, was a native of Angola. In the 1950s he was one of a new generation of poets who advocated socialism and Angolan autonomy, and published in the short-lived but important journal Mensagem. He was also published in Távola Redonda (Lisbon, 1952), in the series edited by the Casa dos Estudantes do Império in Lisbon (1960-1963), in the Colecções Imbondeiro published at Sá da Bandeira (1960-1966), in the Edições Capricornio (1974), and by the Agência Geral de Colónias (1962-1968). Writing in 1969, Moser noted that after racial warfare erupted in northern Angola, terror silenced the poets for years: "Hesitatingly, some small voices of reconciliation made themselves heard again, above all the poet Mário António, who in prose and verse expressed the nostalgia, the anguish, but also the enduring hopes of the young mulattoes in the 'Creole islands' (as he aptly called the old cities of Luanda and Benguela)...." (p. 26). Moser and Ferreira describe him as "one of the few consciously African writers who have achieved artistic excellence in their Portuguese writings" (Bibliografia das literaturas africanas de expressão portuguesa, p. 56).*** Moser & Ferreira, Bibliografia das literaturas africanas de expressão portuguesa pp. 56, 66, 78: calling for only 73 pp.; see also 7, 17, 52, 62, 78, 100, 118, 233-43, 245, 247, 251-6, 258, 263, 265-7, 278, 300-4, 309 (various essays by and about the author). Moser, Essays in Portuguese-African Literature pp. 26, 67, 76, 77, 78. See also Dicionário cronológico de autores portugueses, VI, 244-6; and Maria Aperecida Ribeiro in Biblos, I, 339-40. Jisc locates one copy each at British Library, Manchester University, and School of Oriental and African Studies-University of London.