Postmortem narration in A casa dos mastros, by Orlanda Amarílis

Trauma throught the marginal lens of cape-verdean women

Abstract

In 1989, Cape-Verdean writer Orlanda Amarílis publishes A Casa dos Mastros, a collection of seven short stories, of which two – “A Casa dos Mastros” and “Laura” – are narrated by dead women, both with tragic endings: one commits suicide by jumping off a balcony, and the other is hit by a car while crossing the street. Who are these women? Why did they die? Why are their stories important? I argue that the posthumous narrators of Amarílis’s short stories have the authority to speak the truth, as transcendent figures. They can, at least, speak freely about their own traumas and the traumas of those around them. Their marginal position as dead women provides them with the active agency that had been denied to them when living – this was a time when society muted them for being women. They resist from the margin, albeit such margin is as insurmountable as death. This article explores the need of these women to tell their story postmortem, and the social and political implications of their actions.