Title: Literature and madness in O Louco do Cati by Dyonélio Machado and Conhecimento do Inferno by António Lobo Antunes

Abstract: In this paper, I shall first discuss, in general terms, possible connections between literature and madness, before focusing on O Louco do Cati by Dyonélio Machado and Conhecimento do Inferno by António Lobo Antunes. In Machado’s work, the madness of the title character is mythical, historical and political, fictionalised amidst childhood trauma and police persecution. In Antunes’s novel, however, hell is conflated with the Colonial War in Angola and the Miguel Bombarda Hospital in Lisbon. Given that both authors worked as psychiatrists, these works seem to suggest that madness – whether real or fictional – is not merely a mental illness or disorder; it presents itself as something that, even when experienced, cannot be fully understood.

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Bionote: Marcelo Lachat is an associate professor of Portuguese Literature in the Department of Languages and Literature at the Federal University of São Paulo and is currently a visiting professor of Early Modern Portuguese Literature at the University of Oxford. He is also an accredited lecturer on the Postgraduate Programme in Languages and Literature at the Federal University of São Paulo and on the Postgraduate Programme in Comparative Studies of Portuguese-Language Literatures at the University of São Paulo. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Literature from the State University of Campinas, and a Master’s and PhD in Portuguese Literature from the University of São Paulo, having undertaken two research placements abroad during his PhD: at the University of Lisbon and at the University of Paris III – Sorbonne Nouvelle.

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