Escrever para (não) morrer em teoria geral do esquecimento, De José Eduardo Agualusa

Abstract

This research highlights a reflection about the introverted behavior of the character Ludovica Fernandes Mano, so-called Ludo, who is the protagonist of the novel A General Theory of Oblivion published in 2012 by José Eduardo Agualusa. From the very beginning, the novel awakens readers' attention regarding memory due to the fact of that the character, who is a Portuguese woman who moves to Luanda, recorded her story in some diaries so as on the walls of an apartment by the beginning 1975. In this year, Angola became independent and inside this apartment she has shut herself for almost thirty years. By the time the narrative elapses, another theme appears, which results from the first one, the forgetfulness. It can be noticed when the character tries to remove from her life the memories that torment her. However, by shutting herself, she faces disparate situations. The first one leads the young woman to isolation so as the desire of forgetting and being forgotten, while in the second one she finds refuge and resistance from the cruel and violent past that afflicts her by the writing appropriation. Thus, the purpose of this work is to intersect the points of the memory that dialogue with the forgetfulness to verify if Ludo was not in a death and rebirth game, trying to rewrite her story.