This study focuses on the analysis of how, the literary project of Mia Couto, in O Outro Pé da Sereia, there is a questioning of time and ancestry from the aesthetic construction of space. There are, in the novel, specifically in Chapter "A travessia do tempo", metaphors able to suggest the scenario of conflicts, and their erasures arising, caused by the restaging of ancient rituals in the family Rodrigues. Such erasures are made explicit from quite ambiguous situations experienced by the main characters of the novel, Constance and Mwadia, mother and daughter, inside the mother's house, privileged space to serve as a stage to the more ambiguous conflicts. Situation that metaphorizes the current condition of Mozambique. To support this study, the works of Assman, Gamma-Khalil, Bhabha, Braunstone and Bachelard were used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]