João Bernardo Dias (1926-1949);

The Brigada «João Dias»

Dossier MZ-0712

The Mozambican writer João Dias was born in 1926. His father, Estácio Dias, was a well-known journalist in Lourenço Marques, and Dias filho was sent to study in Portugal as a young man. He spent three years reading law at the prestigious University of Coimbra, but later transferred to Lisbon, where he died at the age of 22 in 1949. His only book, a collection of short stories under the title Godido e Outros Contos was published posthumously in Lisbon in 1952 by Nova África, with the support of the Mozambique section of the Casa dos Estudantes do Império.

Above: João Bernardo Dias (1926-1949). Dias died tragically young while studying in Portugal, and his one book of stories was published posthumously by friends. He subsequently became the symbolic ‘first writer of fiction’ in the emerging historiography of Mozambican literature.

Mozambican literature, while boasting great poets such as José Craveirinha, Rui Noronha and Noémia de Sousa, is not rich in writers of fiction, especially in the early periods. Ana Mafaldo Leite has suggested that this was the result of the small size of the intelligentsia and the late development of the school system, and was a way of avoiding censorship problems. She names Dias, Luís Bernardo Honwana and Orlando Mendes as the three prose writers of the early period. In any event, since independence in 1975, and in the context of the ongoing search for a Mozambican literary identity, Dias’s book Godido assumed considerable symbolic importance, and a long-awaited second edition was published with considerable fanfare by AEMO, the writer’s association, in September 1989, forty years after the author’s death and 37 since the work first appeared. Not all critics agree on the works literary, as opposed to historical importance, however. Russel G. Hamilton, in his book Voices from an Empire (1975), wrote of ‘the turgid prose of [these] essayistic stories’ and draws attention to the ‘technical defects’ of Dias’s writing. Regardless, both Dias’s importance and his place in Mozambican literary history are assured.

Links to Other Resources

Although much of the writing about him is semi-popular, Dias has attracted a modest amount of academic attention both in Mozambique and elsewhere. Below, links to other websites with a couple of open access papers on his significance.
◊ Luís Vasconcelos Pedro, Proposta de edição comentada do texto de João Dias, «Godido», trabalho de projecto para a obtenção do grau de Licenciatura em Linguistica, UEM, December 1996, 54 pages.
◊ Érica Antunes Pereira, Um Rumo para Godido: a personagem de João Dias em diálogo com os poemas de Alda Lara e Noémia de Sousa, trabalho apresentado ao XI Congresso Internacional da ABRALIC, 13 a 17 de julho de 2008, USP, São Paulo, Brasil. 5 pages.

MHN Resources

João Dias the Writer

◊ 8 March 1981
Cyprian Kwilimbe. Contos de João Dias: um brado pela justiça. Tempo [Maputo] no.543 (8 March 1981), p.49-51. In Portuguese. Click here to download a PDF file, size 710 kb.
◊ 14 January 1982
João Dias. Godido. Evocando um escritor moçambicano. Domingo [Maputo] (14 January 1982), p.18. In Portuguese. Click here to download a PDF file, size 429 kb. The weekly Domingo here reprints the story «Godido» with a short paragraph explaining the historical importance of Dias’s work.
◊ 17 January 1982
Vítor Evaristo. João Dias visto por quem o conheceu. Notícias [Maputo] (17 January 1982), p.3. In Portuguese. Click here to download a PDF file, size 325 kb. The first part of a memoir of Dias reprinted from the Lisbon journal «África» no.10 (October-December 1980).
◊ 28 January 1982
Vítor Evaristo. João Dias visto por quem o conheceu. Notícias [Maputo] (28 January 1982), p.3. In Portuguese. Click here to download a PDF file, size 216 kb. The second part of a memoir of Dias reprinted from the Lisbon journal «África» no.10 (October-December 1980).

Above: the cover of the first edition of Godido e Outros Contos by João Dias, published in Lisbon by Nova África in 1952.

◊ 2 January 1983
João Dias and Cyprian Kwilimbe. Conto sobre o Natal. Tempo [Maputo] no.638 (2 January 1983), p.46-47. In Portuguese. Click here to download a PDF file, size 374 kb. The text of Dias’s short story, with an introduction by Cyprian Kwilimbe.
◊ 27 March 1983
Cyprian Kwilimbe. 34.º aniversário da morte de João Dias: a outra face do escritor. Tempo [Maputo] no.650 (27 March 1983), p.50-51. In Portuguese. Click here to download a PDF file, size 511 kb.
◊ 5 October 1986
Fátima Mendonça. Dias, João (João Bernardo Dias). Domingo [Maputo] (5 October 1986), p.5. In Portuguese. Click here to download a PDF file, size 206 kb. A short biographical sketch of Fernando Couto. One of the series «Ficha de Leitura A/Z».
◊ 25 January 1987
Nikos Kakurios. João Dias: escritor maldito. Domingo [Maputo] (25 January 1987). In Portuguese. Click here to download a PDF file, size 207 kb.

Above: the cover of the second edition of Godido e Outros Contos by João Dias, published in Maputo by AEMO, the writers’s association, in 1989.

◊ 25 January 1987
Afonso Zitha. Uma tarde com três Dias. Domingo [Maputo] (25 January 1987). In Portuguese. Click here to download a PDF file, size 152 kb.
◊ 14 August 1988
Escritores em Maputo assinalam aniversário de João Dias. Tempo [Maputo] no.931 (14 August 1988). In Portuguese. Click here to download a PDF file, size 78 kb. Marking what would have been, had he lived, Dias's 62nd birthday.
◊ 18 June 1989
António Fermino. O nascimento de Godido. Domingo [Maputo] (18 June 1989). In Portuguese. Click here to download a PDF file, size 140 kb.
◊ 8 October 1989
AEMO reedita Godido de João Dias. Tempo [Maputo] (8 October 1989), p.55. In Portuguese. Click here to download a PDF file, size 144 kb.

The «Brigada João Dias»

The João Dias Brigade was an initiative of AEMO, the Mozambican writers’ association, established with the objective of spreading the word about the importance of literature by visiting schools, offices, factories, villages and other places where the works of Mozambican poets and fiction writers were under-appreciated. It was initially led by the writer Castigo Zita, who died in 1988.
◊ 25 January 1987
Brigada João Dias (AEMO). O Godido visto pela família. Domingo [Maputo] (25 January 1987). In Portuguese. Click here to download a PDF file, size 774 kb.
◊ 1 February 1987
Juvenal Bucuane. Sobre a Brigada João Dias: quando à vontade corresponde o empenho. Domingo [Maputo] (1 February 1987). In Portuguese. Click here to download a PDF file, size 299 kb.
◊ 28 February 1987
Em Inhambane e Gaza, Brigada João Dias forma núcleos literários. Notícias [Maputo] (28 February 1987). In Portuguese. Click here to download a PDF file, size 72 kb.
◊ 8 March 1987
António Fermino. Homoíne com João Dias. Domingo [Maputo] (8 March 1987), p.5. In Portuguese. Click here to download a PDF file, size 202 kb. Chronicle of a visit to Homoíne with the Brigada João Dias.
◊ 19 April 1987
Com Brigada João Dias, manhã de literatura na Manyanga. Domingo [Maputo] (19 April 1987). In Portuguese. Click here to download a PDF file, size 1.2 Mb. The Brigade visits the Escola Secundária Francisco Manyanga in Maputo.
◊ 8 January 1989
A escolha da semana: luto para a Brigada João Dias de literatura, pela morte do seu fundador, o jovem escritor Castigo Zita. Domingo [Maputo] (8 January 1989), p.5. In Portuguese. Click here to download a PDF file, size 391 kb. The first part of an article, to be continued. Castigo Zita died in Harare, Zimbabwe, on 26 December 1988 at the age of 27. The piece includes the text of his short story «A Viúva de Guijá».