Exoticism, Cultural Hybridity, and Subaltern Identity in  Three Macanese Novels

José Suárez

doi:10.21471/jls.v13i0.10

José Suárez University of Northern Colorado

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21471/jls.v13i0.10

Keywords: colonialism, coloniality, exoticism, fetish, miscegenation

Abstract

Although the novels of Austin Coates, Henrique de Senna Fernandes, and
Rodrigo Leal de Carvalho’s depict life in the former Portuguese colony of Macau, their individual perspectives reflect a contrast between literary colonialism and coloniality.
A British public servant, Coates perceives Macanese reality through the competing biased eyes of an Englishman resenting Portuguese culture and administration in the colony; Leal de Carvalho, a Portuguese resident of Macau, romantically depicts the social nature of Portuguese colonialism; Senna Fernandes, a native Macanese educated in Portugal, orders his interpretation of the colony’s Eurasian inhabitants vis-à-vis its Chinese population. The aim of this article is to contrast the literary representation of three issues in Coates’s City of Broken Promises, Fernandes’s The Bewitching Braid, and Carvalho’s The Count and his Theree Wives: exoticism, cultural hybridity, and subaltern identity.

Author Biography

José Suárez, University of Northern Colorado

José I. Suárez is Professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of Northern Colorado. He has published over forty scholarly articles in refereed journals and has published four books. Among his publications are The Carnival Stage: Vicentine Comedy within the Serio-Comic Mode, Gil Vicente’s The Play of Rubena, and Mário de Andrade: The Creative Works. In 2001, he was included as a Renowned Person in Gente Ilustre. Dr. Suárez has taught Spanish and Portuguese at Michigan State University, the University of South Carolina, and Clemson University.