Luis Bernardo Honwana

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Luis Bernado Honwana (born 1942) is a Mozambican author.

Luis Bernado Honwana was born Luís Augusto Bernardo Manuel in Lourenço Marques (present-day Maputo), Mozambique. His parents, Raúl Bernardo Manuel (Honwana) and Naly Jeremias Nhaca, belonged to the Ronga people from Moamba, a town about 55 km northwest of Maputo. He studied law in Portugal and worked for some time as a journalist.

Honwana was appointed director of President's office under Samora Machel. Later in 1981 he became Secretary of State for culture.

Honwana is the author of a single book "We Killed Mangy Dog" [Heinemann, 1969]. This work has proved enormously influential and a case can be made for it being the touchstone of contemporary Mozambican narrative. "We Killed Mangy Dog" is a collections of short stories set in the (Portuguese) colonial era at the turn of the Sixties and is reflective of the harsh life black Mozambicans lived under the Salazar regime. Several of the stories are told from the point of view of children or alienated adolescents and most feature the rich mix of races, religions and ethnicities that would later preoccupy Mozambique's most internationally celebrated writer, Mia Couto.