Fernando Monteiro de Castro Soromenho

Fernando Monteiro de Castro Soromenho (born Jan. 31, 1910, Chinde, Mozambique—died June 18, 1968, São Paulo, Brazil) was a white Angolan novelist writing in Portuguese who depicted African life in the interior of the country and condemned the Portuguese colonial administration there. He is known as the “father of the Angolan novel.”

Soromenho was taken to Angola by his parents in 1911, was sent to school in Portugal at the age of six, and returned to Angola from 1925 until 1937. His first job, as a recruiter of African contract labour for a mining company in northeastern Angola, gave him a chance to know and respect traditional African life. He then became a journalist, first in Luanda and later in Lisbon, where in 1937 he edited the weekly Humanidade. In 1943 he started his own publishing house, Sociedade de Intercâmbio Luso-Brasileiro.

Soromenho’s published work consists of five novels, four volumes of stories, and several sociological studies and travel books. Nhárí: O Drama da Gente Negra (1938; “Nhari: The Drama of Black People”), his first work, contains stories about traditional African societies. In later works, such as the novel Terra Morta (1949; “Dead Land”), he concentrates on the conflict produced by European intrusion on the life of Africans in Luanda province. Terra Morta, published in Brazil, was banned by Portuguese authorities. The government subsequently prevented the distribution of other books published by Soromenho. In 1960, to escape arrest in Portugal, he fled abroad and lived in France, the United States, and Brazil.

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Soromenho’s other novels include Noite de Angústia (1939; “Night of Anguish”), Homens sem Caminho (1941; “Men without Direction”), A Viragem (1957; “Turnabout”), and A Chaga (1970; “The Wound”).