NARRATIVES OF DOMESTIC NEOCOLONIALISM AND DECOLONISATION IN THE NOVELS OF MIA COUTO AND JOSE EDUARDO AGUALUSA

Abstract

This study examined the themes of domestic neocolonialism and decolonisation as portrayed in Mia Couto’s Sleepwalking Land and José Eduardo Agualusa’s The Society of Reluctant Dreamers. This study offered a critical contribution to postcolonial discourse by illuminating the concept of domestic neocolonialism and its impact on individual agency and national identity. Through the analysis of Sleepwalking Land and The Society of Reluctant Dreamers, the study highlighted how internal systems of control perpetuate colonial legacies, while also exploring pathways toward decolonisation through resistance, memory, and imagination. This thesis argued that domestic neocolonialism functions as a systemic internal reproduction of colonial power structures, and that decolonisation—both political and imaginative—emerges through literary representations of resistance, memory, and reclamation of identity. The objectives of the study were threefold: first, to analyse how Sleepwalking Land and The Society of Reluctant Dreamers employ literary techniques— such as dreams, symbolism, magical realism, and fragmented narrative structures—to portray and critique domestic neocolonialism; second, to examine how characters and processes of characterisation in the two novels reflect the internalisation of colonial power and the struggle between domination, complicity, and resistance within post-independence societies; and third, to evaluate how both authors use narrative imagination to express decolonial consciousness and envision alternative paths toward liberation and self-definition in Lusophone Africa. Guided by Frantz Fanon’s Postcolonial Theory and Achille Mbembe’s concepts from necropolitics Theory—particularly the notions of the state's power to dictate who may live and who must die, and the transformation of the post colony into a space of death—as strands of the broader postcolonial theory, this qualitative study employed a comparative textual analysis supported by close reading, thematic coding, and interpretive criticism. The analysis focused on how narrative structure, characterisation, symbolism, and the motif of dreams reveal the internalised colonial hierarchies and the pursuit of liberation in both Mozambique and Angola. This methodological approach allowed for a nuanced examination of how Couto and Agualusa portray the experiences of Mozambican and Angolan citizens as victims of domestic neocolonial oppression and explore their paths to reclaiming their rights. In this study, Sleepwalking Land by Mia Couto and The Society of Reluctant Dreamers by José Eduardo Agualusa served as the primary texts. These two novels were purposively selected for their exploration of themes related to domestic neocolonialism and decolonisation within postcolonial African societies. This study argued that through their deployment of magical realism, fragmented memory, and collective dreaming, Mia Couto’s Sleepwalking Land and José Eduardo Agualusa’s The Society of Reluctant Dreamers both expose domestic neocolonialism as an internal structure of economic and cultural domination that reproduces colonial logics within post-independence Lusophone Africa. By comparatively analyzing how each novel renders debt-driven austerity, elite capture of national resources, and the struggle to reclaim narrative sovereignty, the thesis demonstrated that decolonisation in these texts emerges not only as political reform but as imaginative rupture—an embodied re-envisioning of history, identity, and possibility.