- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Serpent's Tail (April 1 2006)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 185242897X
- ISBN-13: 978-1852428976
- Product Dimensions: 20 x 13.1 x 1.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 23 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #371,959 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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"
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
War had killed the road thereabouts. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
War had killed the road thereabouts. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Help me Im pretending to dream, Dec 21 2011
By Doro - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: A Sleepwalking Land (Paperback)
If this is one of the best African books I shutter to think what the rest are like. Obviously war is hell and nothing is more hellish than an African war of tribes killing tribes and Africans stealing, raping and doing whatever bad things they want to do to each other with no culture, religious beliefs or police to stop them. So life has been hellish for the main characters of this book (a child and an old man) and probably that is why the author feels free to make up a story of ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night. Its not science fiction exactly but close to it.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A simple story with a powerful message about the power of love and hope, Sep 19 2009
By Irish of Tickettoanywhere(dot)net - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: A Sleepwalking Land (Paperback)
I had initially started to read the book Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell as it was suggested to me on the Go Review That Book! Group on Librarything.com. However just as I was starting to read it a few books that I had put on hold at the library came in so I put that book aside and began to read Sleepwalking Land by Mia Couto.
I first heard about this book on Librarything and was intrigued by what people said about it. This book takes place entirely in a burnt out bus somewhere in Mozambique during the civil war that occurred there during the 1980's. The main story takes place between Muidinga a young boy and the older man, Tuahir, who takes it upon himself to care for him. Tuahir is a gruff character who cares deeply for Muidinga but doesn't like to show it openly. Instead he shows him with small actions rather than words the love that he feels. After leaving a refugee camp Tuahir and Muidinga wander Mozambique and eventually take refuge in a burnt out bus. While in the bus they find among the remain belongs a series of diaries and bond between the two grows as they lose themselves in the story that the diaries contain.
Sleepwalking Land is a powerful novel with a dream-like feel to it. In the hands of a less talented author this story would probably have been very disjointed. Couto manages to weave the two stories together in an almost seamless way. The characters are lovable as well as memorable as is the story that they tell. Sleepwalking Land is a short novel but its one whose message of the power of love and hope is one that stays will you long after the book is down. Couto has a beautiful way of speaking and I look forward to reading other novels by him.
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