PhD candidate co-edits anthology marking 50 years of Lusophone African independences
Israel Campos is behind the anthology Construir Amanhã Com Barro de Dentro – Vozes do Pós-Independência (Building Tomorrow with Inner Clay – Voices of the Post-Independence)
The anthology, co-organised with Mozambican writer and journalist Eduardo Quive, brings together 19 short stories by authors from across the PALOP (África Lusófona), including Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe, all reflecting on the shared experience of 50 years of independence.
Launched on 27 August at the Instituto Camões in Maputo, the event featured writers, artists, readers, and researchers, including Inês Cordeiro Dias, Lecturer in Luso-Afro-Brazilian Studies at the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies, and one of Israel’s PhD supervisors.
The book launch also received attention from the main public TV Channel, TVM, where Campos and Quive gave an interview in one of the most important cultural TV shows of the country.
The anthology’s introductory essays were written by renowned Mozambican author Paulina Chiziane and Inocência Mata, Professor of Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Lisbon.
In her postface, Professor Mata reflects on the work’s urgency and depth:
“This anthology invites the reader to read slowly, to cross voices, to listen to silences. On every page, a question emerges: what Independence is still yet to be achieved? Across these pages, we find words that hurt and unsettle, but also words that inspire and bring hope. Words that aim to reinvent the grammar of a history once dreamt to be different.
“These young authors write from concrete experience, yet they also confront the precipices of their time. The choice of the title says it all: grounded in the land they tread, these young authors remain attentive to the fractures and silences before them, narrating the present with bitter lucidity. They do not celebrate, they denounce. They do not proclaim truths, they whisper doubts, expose unease, reveal frustrations. And yet, or perhaps because of this, they renew the inaugural gesture of the poets of Independence.”
Israel Campos, an Angolan journalist and award-winning writer, has received notice across national and international media, with interviews on Mozambique’s national television and coverage by outlets such as Deutsche Welle, Lusa, and Forbes África Lusófona.
Campos is a recipient of the 2024 Imprensa Nacional/Casa da Moeda Literature Prize and the 2025 Ferreira de Castro Youth Literature Prize. His journalism portfolio includes contributions to the BBC, Voice of America, Al Jazeera, and The Wall Street Journal, and his debut novel E o Céu Mudou de Cor was published in 2023. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Media and Communication at the University of Leeds.
