Russell Hamilton: Pioneering Critic of African Literatures in Portuguese

Abstract

Russell Hamilton’s scholarly career coincided with the anti-colonial liberation movements throughout the Portuguese African territories of Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Principe, in the 1960s and 70s. During this critical time-period, written literature in the form of poetry, short stories, essays, and novels played a major role among African elites by imagining these newly emerging nations. While denouncing the injustices and ravages of Portuguese colonialism, literary art galvanized readers to the cause of independence.