Stories from Outside and Inside the Goan Casa Grande: Away from the Community Romance

Abstract

This article analyses the English-language short story “Mand Goes to Church” by the Goan writer Selma Carvalho in counterpoint with the Portuguese-language novel Casa Grande e Outras Recordações de um Velho Goês [The Great House and Other Memories of an Old Goan] by another Goan writer, Leopoldo da Rocha, and argues that the Indo-Portuguese great house, the casa grande, serves in each as a symbolic space for the conflict-ridden encounter between Portuguese and Indian cultures in Goa during the Portuguese regime in India (1510-1961).