Territorializing the Indian Ocean: transnational imaginaries and World-Literature in João Paulo Borges Coelho

Abstract

This research project is situated in the fields of Indian Ocean Studies, Postcolonial Theory, and World-Literature and aims at analyzing the two short stories books Índicos Indícios I - Setentrião and Índicos Indícios II - Meridião (2005) by Mozambican contemporary writer João Paulo Borges Coelho. The aim is to investigate to what degree the Indian Ocean, as transnational geography and as an alternative critical paradigm, represents a substantial critical framework for the study of African Literatures on a global scale. Challenging the critical approaches grounded in spatial and linguistic perspectives, the Indian Ocean paradigm will be analyzed as critical cartography, through a theoretical articulation with the field the World-literary Studies, addressing the theme of the sea as a critical framework to rethink concepts of nation, territory, culture, and identity in contemporary Mozambican literature.