From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Heralded as one of the 12 best African books of the 20th century by the Zimbabwe International Book Fair, Couto's first novel, a colorfully harsh portrayal of war-torn Mozambique, is as seductive in detail as it is loaded with symbolism. Two refugees of the country's bloody protracted civil war, begun with its independence in 1975, seek safety in a charred bus. Muidinga, a boy recovering from illness, and Tuahir, an elderly companion from the refugee camp they have fled, bide their time by reading the notebooks of a nearby corpse of a young man, Kindzu. The entries recount, in a wonderfully rich idiom, Kindzu making his way in a shattered world, including his attempts to become a naparama, or warrior of justice. As he explores a beached ship, he comes upon a beautiful woman named Farida, who provides a mission worthy of his ambitions: to find and return her lost son, Gaspar. Like García Márquez, Couto, a white writer from Mozambique who is the author of
The Flight of the Flamingo and
Under the Frangipani, flirts with magic realism to compound the chaos of a newly independent state. He delivers a brutally absorbing tale of those who suffered a devastated country's vicissitudes.
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Review
"'On almost every page of this witty magic realist whodunit, we sense Couto's delight in those places where language slips officaldom's asphyxiating grasp' New York Times Book Review 'To read Mia Couto is to encounter a pecullarly African sensibility, a writer of fluid, fragmentary narratives' New Statesman 'Couto is the most prominent of the younger generation of writers in Portuguese-speaking Africa' Guardian 'Under the Frangipani is a powerful and trenchant evocation of life in a society traumatised by decades of war and poverty' New Internationalist 'This book has fierce vitality...' Time Out"
Book Description
“On almost every page of this witty magical realist whodunit, we sense Couto’s delight on those places where language slips officialdom’s asphyxiating grasp.”—The New York Times Book Review on The Last Flight of the Flamingo
“The most prominent of the younger generation of writers in Portuguese-speaking Africa, Couto passionately and sensitively describes everyday life in poverty-stricken Mozambique.”—Guardian (London)
“Quite unlike anything else I have read from Africa.”—Doris Lessing
As the civil war rages in 1980s Mozambique, an old man and a young boy, refugees from the war, seek shelter in a burnt-out bus. Among the effects of a dead passenger, they come across a set of notebooks that tell of his life. As the boy reads the story to his elderly companion, this story and their own develop in tandem. Written in 1992, Mia Couto’s first novel is a powerful indictment of the suffering war brings.
Born in 1955 in Mozambique, Mia Couto ran the AIM news agency during the revolutionary struggle. He now lives in Maputo where he works as an environmental biologist and heads the Mozambique side of the Limpopo Transnational Park.
About the Author
Mia Couto was born in 1955 in Mozambique and is the most prominent writer in Portuguese-speaking Africa. He has been active as a journalist and during the revolutionary struggle headed the AIM news agency. He now lives in Maputo where he works as an environmental biologist and runs the Mozambique part of the Kruger National Park.
