A gloriosa família is a novel by the Angola

Angola

Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...

n author Pepetela

Pepetela

Artur Carlos Maurício Pestana dos Santos is a major Angolan writer of fiction. He writes under the name Pepetela....

 published in 1997 by Dom Quixote (Lisbon). The novel deals with the family of Baltasar Van Dum, a Flemish

Flemish

Flemish can refer to anything related to Flanders, and may refer directly to the following articles:*Flemish, an informal, though linguistically incorrect, name of any kind of the Dutch language as spoken in Belgium....

 slave trader in Luanda, during the period of time that the Dutch ruled the colony. In order to write the novel, Pepetela undertook painstaking research of the seven years in which the Dutch occupied Angola, using archives located in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, Antwerp, and the Vatican.

Plot synopsis

The long novel is composed of 12 chapters, and is set between the years 1642 and 1648. The novel is narrated by a mute mestiço slave, who is one of Van Dum's favorites. In addition to Van Dum and the slave narrator there are many other characters in the novel, most of whom are Van Dum's children. A division exists between the legitimate children that Van Dum has had with his legal wife, Dona Inocência, an African princess, and the "filhos do quintal," or the children of the yard, illegitimate children that Van Dum has had with other slaves.

Historical background

As stated earlier, the novel takes place during the Dutch occupation of Angola. The Van Dum family of the novel can be seen as having strong parallels to the Van Dúnem family, considered the most eminent of Luanda

Luanda

Luanda, formerly named São Paulo da Assunção de Loanda, is the capital and largest city of Angola. Located on Angola's coast with the Atlantic Ocean, Luanda is both Angola's chief seaport and its administrative center. It has a population of at least 5 million...

 Creole families.

Reception and Criticism

Many critics look at A gloriosa família as both a celebration and a criticism of Angola's creole population. Fernando Arenas wrote of the ways that novel puts a postmodern spin on the theories of Brazilian anthropologist Gilberto Freyre

Gilberto Freyre

Gilberto de Mello Freyre was a Brazilian sociologist, anthropologist, historian, writer, painter and congressman. His best-known work is a sociological treatise named Casa-Grande & Senzala...

, eventually critiquing the slave-holding system that is the root of Angolan society. Stephen Henighan describes the novel as illustrating both the "admirable and reprehensible sides of Creole culture." While the family is resourceful and inclusive of other races, they are all also responsible for the slave trade in the interior of the country.