Abandonara o barco porque sabia nadarвЂќ (38).Д¦In this respect, the name of вЂњ A ArmadilhaвЂќвЂ™s protagonist вЂ“ Justo Martirio вЂ“ seems to point towards a sacrifice of European pleasures and of freedom, and to a sacrifice of possibility, underscored by the fact that the title that frames the story is вЂњThe TrapвЂќ. In the story that opens the book, the protagonist Abandoning ShipДҐвЂњ A ArmadilhaвЂќ is significantly sandwiched between narratives of mobility, which depict characters who prefer not to look back. Indeed, one might say that вЂњhomeвЂќ only exists if it can be left, abandoned, betrayed, and that it therefore necessitates and calls for its own betrayal. In a strict sense, then, one has always already left home, since home can only exist as such at the price of its being lostвЂќ (xviii). According to Georges van Abeele, вЂњhe concept of a home is needed (and in fact can only be thought) only after the home has already been left behind. How can a former exile fit in with a new nationalism which surfaces as a response to the prior colonial condition? How can a return from the heart of the colonial power not be regarded as complicit with colonialism or with colonial nostalgia? 2 In other words, how could the one who returns notbe regarded as a traitor? Moreover, how can one understand his/her status in relation to the home or the patria (fatherland)? Is s/he a parricidal citizen, and can one therefore even speak of a return вЂњhomeвЂќ in this case? Yet another question that emerges is whether the impossible return to a radically transformed Angola doesnвЂ™t perhaps illustrate the case of any attempt at a homecoming. вЂњImperialist nostalgia,вЂќ in Culture and Tr (.)Д¤AgualusaвЂ™s story urges one to consider what such a return might entail for nations that are reconstituting themselves after the wounds of colonialism.

2 See Renato Rosaldo on Colonial (or Imperial) nostalgia.

The subject of these stories is a wandering, transitory nature that cannot be separated from the background of violence and disorientation produced by the succession of wars the country has undergone and the dispersal that ensued. This ravaged country is one that cannot offer hospitality, and receives its visitors and returning citizens with landmines that explode under their feet. In effect, I want to suggest that one of the textвЂ™s underlying questions is the possibility of inserting oneself in a literary and intellectual history without being tagged as a traitor to oneвЂ™s nation.ДўThe title of JosГ© Eduardo AgualusaвЂ™s collection of short stories, in which вЂњ A ArmadilhaвЂќ is published вЂ“ Passageiros em Transito Novos contos para viajar (2006) вЂ“ reveals that the leading thread of this collection of stories is the destabilized and deracinated existence of those living in a post-colonial and post-civil war Angola. Although not directly addressed by the narrative, one of the subtexts of AgualusaвЂ™s text thus seems to be a reflection on the possibility of creating an Angolan literature, written in Portuguese, with European references, without necessarily betraying the spirit of emancipation, nor the rupture with the colonial legacy that AgualusaвЂ™s narrative marks and to which it bears witness.

Indeed, a story such as вЂњ A Armadilha,вЂќ written in the colonial language of the Portuguese, and evoking European literary texts, inevitably urges one to reflect on the questions of indebtedness to colonialism, and the betrayal of the newly independent, postcolonial nation, all of which might be expected when there is a recognition of debt to former colonial powers. Yet beyond simply thematizing homecoming and political betrayal, AgualusaвЂ™s narrative also engages the question of a literary legacy of exile, betrayal and revenge, and invites one to consider what it means to write from the locus of a post-colonial state.

вЂњ A ArmadilhaвЂќ portrays the return to Angola of a character who had left twenty-five years earlier вЂ“ coinciding with the beginning of the Civil War, and the end of the war of independence from Portugal in 1975 вЂ“ and the vengeful rancor of those left behind. 1Despite its parable-like style, JosГ© Eduardo AgualusaвЂ™s short story вЂњ A ArmadilhaвЂќ вЂ“ вЂњThe Trap вЂ“ revisits the timeless tale of homecoming in a localizable and historically determined setting.

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