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Artur Carlos Maurício Pestana dos Santos (born 1941) is a major Angolan writer of fiction. He writes under the name Pepetela. A white Angolan, Pepetela was born in Benguela, Portuguese Angola, and fought as a member of the MPLA in the long guerrilla war for Angola's independence. Much of his writing deals with Angola's political history in the 20th century. ''Mayombe'', for example, is a novel that portrays the lives of a group of MPLA guerrillas who are involved in the anti-colonial struggle in Cabinda, ''Yaka'' follows the lives of members of a white settler family in the coastal town of Benguela, and ''A Geração da Utopia'' reveals the disillusionment of young Angolans during the post-independence period. Pepetela has also written about Angola's earlier history in ''A Gloriosa Família'' and ''Lueji'', and has expanded into satire with his series of Jaime Bunda novels. His most recent works include ''Predadores'', a scathing critique of Angola's ruling classes, ''O Quase Fim do Mundo'', a post-apocalyptic allegory, and ''O Planalto e a Estepe'', a look at Angola's history and connections with other former communist nations. Pepetela won the Camões Prize, the world's highest honour for Lusophone literature, in 1997. "Pepetela" is a Kimbundu word that means "eyelash," which is a translation of his Portuguese surname, "Pestana". The author received this nom de guerre during his time as an MPLA combatant. ==Early life== Pepetela was born in Benguela, Portuguese Angola, to white Angolan parents. His mother's family had been an influential commercial and military family in the Moçâmedes (present-day Namibe) region of Angola, his great grandfather having been a major in the Portuguese Army. His mother's family had been in Angola for five generations, whereas his father was born in Angola to Portuguese parents and spent much of his childhood in mainland Portugal.〔Laban, Michel. ''Angola: Encontro com escritores''. Lisbon: Fund. Eng. António de Almeida, 1991. pp. 784-785,〕 Pepetela had a middle-class upbringing in Benguela, attending a school where students of all races and classes intermingled. He has claimed that being raised in Benguela gave him more opportunities to befriend people of other races, because Benguela was a much more mixed city than many others in Angola were during the colonial era. He also claims that he began to develop a class consciousness during his school days, noticing the differences between his own lifestyle and the lives of friends who lived in a nearby slum area. In an interview with Michel Laban, he claims that his upbringing also influenced his political views. He had an uncle who was a journalist and writer and who exposed him to many important leftist thinkers. His father also had a considerable library that allowed the young Pepetela to learn more about the French Revolution, something that influenced him profoundly.〔Laban, ''Angola'', pp. 778-780.〕 When he was 14, the young Pepetela moved to Lubango (then Sá da Bandeira), to continue his studies because there was no high school in Benguela at the time. In Lubango, Pepetela claimed that he became more aware of the problems of race in Angola, as Lubango was a much more segregated community than Benguela. In Lubango he was influenced by a leftist priest, Padre Noronha, who taught him about the Cuban Revolution and kept him abreast of current events.〔Laban, ''Angola'', pp. 781-782.〕 Upon finishing his schooling in Lubango, Pepetela travelled to Portugal where he began to study engineering. While at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon he befriended other Angolan students who were associated with the Casa dos Estudantes do Império, the student association of Portuguese students from the overseas. After two years of study he decided that engineering would not fulfill his interests, and he tried to enter the History course at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon. However, with the start of the Portuguese Colonial War home in Angola, he was summoned to serve in the Portuguese Armed Forces and decided to flee Portugal.〔Laban, ''Angola'', pp. 785-786.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pepetela」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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