The objective of this lecture is to offer a critical framework that will provide historical, geopolitical, discursive, and cultural coordinates in order to understand the emergence and development of Lusophone African nations within the larger context of the Portuguese-speaking world and in relationship to Portugal and Brazil. These nations have been varyingly interconnected for several centuries through the experience of colonialism as well as the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but more recently, through globalization. This lecture explores the deep-seated cultural, material, ideological, and political linkages of Lusophone Africa with Portugal as well as with Brazil that are rooted in the colonial era, but that continue to evolve under the ambivalent sign of "postcolonialism."