Postcolonial Subjects in the Goan Short Stories “A Portuguese Soldier’s Story” by Lambert Mascarenhas and “Um Português em Baga” by Epitácio Pais

This article analyses two postcolonial short stories from Goa: the Anglophone “A Portuguese Soldier’s Story” by Lambert Mascarenhas and the Lusophone “Um Portugues em Baga” by Epitacio Pais. Both narratives feature a Portuguese subject who returns to the territory after the demise of colonial rule to resolve unfinished business dating from colonial times. Adapting the ideas of Homi Bhabha and Boaventura de Sousa Santos, I look at how each story challenges essentialist ideas about the ex-coloniser in order to move past dichotomising anti-colonial discourses and, in so doing, allow the reader to question common presuppositions about the orientation and operations of postcolonial literature. Written in different languages and at different times, the two prose tales also differ in their conclusions and so reveal the complexity of identity games in postcolonial situations, an intricacy underplayed by a narrowly anti-colonial conception of postcoloniality.