PAIN AND TORTURES – THE PUNISHMENT OF BODIES IN UALALAPI, BY UNGULANI BA KA KHOSA.

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse how the violence in the punishment of bodies happens in the text Ualalapi (2018) written by Mozambican author Ugulani Ba Ka Khosa,showing itself as an incursion that converges literature and history in a challenging fiction model: historiographic metafiction.It contains an interesting exemplification of the postmodern textual typology worked by Linda Hutcheon. Furthermore, it is proposed to analysehow power relations are manifested between the Imperator Ngungunhane and four highlighted characters: Domia, her father Mputa, Damboia e Manua. The analysis proposal is anchored in the power relations worked by Michel Foucault, as well as in what he defines as violence relations, also expanding to what Marilena Chaui theorizes, when she differentiates power relations and violence relations. Due to the interpretative possibilities, this paper also references other authors, who provide peculiar analyzes of the characters defined here. In Ualalapi, the violence, besides to be a conductive thread, is an instrument for maintaining power and its intricate relationships.