Lanie Millar, associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese, and Fabienne Moore, associate professor of French, collaborated on a newly published book The Revolution Will Be a Poetic Act: African Culture and Decolonization (Polity, 2024), a translation of essays and speeches by prolific anticolonial writer, poet, and politician Mário Pinto de Andrade. The two scholars will give the Oregon Humanities Center’s Spring Wine Chat on Wednesday, June 4, 2025 at 5:30 p.m. at Capitello Wines, 540 Charnelton St.
Born in Angola during Portuguese colonial rule, Mário Pinto de Andrade (1928–1990) was one Africa’s most important 20th-century intellectuals who wrote in French, Portuguese, and Spanish. In 1956, he founded the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola but was exiled after independence was achieved in 1975. He never returned.
As anti-colonial movements got underway in the mid-twentieth century, Andrade wrote extensively about the urgent necessity for Africans to turn away from European cultural and political models, arguing that communities emerging from colonization should focus on voices from within, on self-representation, and on horizontal relationships among Black, African, and decolonizing peoples. Andrade played a key role in theorizing the international reach of revolutionary 20th-century poetry and literature, Black cultural vindication, and African liberation.
When asked how this project came about, Millar shared, “My initial thought was that I was going to translate five of his introductions to anthologies. Then as I kept digging, I realized there was much, much more material, and a significant amount of material in French. I thought the picture of his intellectual production would be incomplete if I just focused on Portuguese, and I approached Fabienne to collaborate.”
“When you research and teach a multilingual, transnational revolutionary figure,” says Moore, “you are educating students about values, actions and modes of writing. The knowledge that this thinker existed, this is how they carried out their actions, this is how the work was perceived by his contemporaries, it provides an educational impact that is huge.”
Along with the translated essays and speeches, the book includes a foreword by Millar and an interview with Andrade’s two daughters, who are guardians of his work. This work is particularly relevant not only to scholars of African decolonization movements but to anyone engaged in contemporary conversations about race, belonging, and political community.
The Wine Chat is free and open to the public. Beverages are available for purchase and a food cart is on the premises of Capitello Wines. There is ample parking at Banner Bank across the street.