A Selective and Annotated Bibliography of English and French Language Sources on Cape Verdean Literature

Abstract

There is a remarkably small amount of translated works from Lusophone Africa. Among the Lusophone texts that are available in translation, those from Cape Verde are few and far between. This lack can be attributed to multiple factors. First, creative publications from Cape Verde do not have wide circulation. Many Cape Verdean works are published in the islands and do not have a large international market, even among other Portuguese-speaking countries. Even within the islands, there is limited access to published creative works, as there is typically a small number of first edition prints, and it is rare for a book to make it to a second edition. This small-scale production affects external and internal access, which is directly correlative to the small amount of critical work that is produced about the creative literature in Cape Verde. Beyond and often because of these limitations, Cape Verdean works are rarely translated from the Crioulo or Portuguese languages, further limiting accessibility.

This bibliography intends to create general access to Cape Verdean Literature for an audience that does not have command of the Portuguese or Crioulo languages, but has an interest in the little known literature from this West African country. Scholars of West Africa, who are largely trained in French and English, can use this bibliography to expand their understanding of West African literature without needing to acquire the Portuguese language. For an in-depth study of Cape Verde, a grasp of the Portuguese (and Crioulo) languages would be necessary; the majority of creative literature is in Crioulo or Portuguese and the sources listed in the two most widely recognized bibliographies on Cape Verde1 are largely in Portuguese. Though the introductions and annotations in both of these bibliographies are in English, few of their cited resources are available in French or English. While these references are invaluable to a scholar of Lusophone literature, they are inaccessible to non-Portuguese-speaking scholars. While applicable sections of these references are noted both in the body of this bibliography and in the section entitled "Resources for Further Research," these sources have a limited audience. The aim of this bibliography is to create levels of access that these other bibliographies do not avail.