- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Serpent's Tail (21 Feb 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 185242897X
- ISBN-13: 978-1852428976
- Product Dimensions: 20 x 13.1 x 1.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 196,871 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
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"
Product Description
An old man and a young boy, refugees from a civil war, seek shelter in a burnt out bus. Among the effects of a dead passenger, they discover a set of notebooks that tell of his life. As the boy reads the story to his elderly companion, the tale gradually becomes part of their own lives. Sleepwalking Land, Mia Couto?s first novel, was an immediate success, and judged at the Zimbabwe Bookfair 2001 to be one of the 12 best African books of the 20th century. Set in the author?s native Mozambique, the novel examines the effects of war and devastation on a newly independent African nation. A sombre book, it reflects a moment in the history of Mozambique when the country could only go forward after settling its account with the bloody past. Deftly exploring the relationship between oral tradition and the written word, truth and fiction, memory and invention, this is a memorable book that captures a critical moment in Africa?s history.
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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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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Hmmm, definitely African in story-telling style, wonderful imagery and imagination, slightly gruelling in places but no hesitation in recommending as an antidote to airport thrillers or formulaic chick-lit. Well-translated too, I had to remind myself it wasn't originally written in English. More than the story itself this book offers insights into the African way of telling them, if that can be described in the singular. Recommended to me by an Angolan as a must-read of Portuguese literature I cannot disagree.
There may be some who don't like its writing style but I would hope that even they get a lot out of it. I have found that African books are many of the most memorable I have read.
There may be some who don't like its writing style but I would hope that even they get a lot out of it. I have found that African books are many of the most memorable I have read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
At last they have translated this book, one of the original 12 best books of Africa. I am on the second reading -- there are so many moments of sublime beauty. Highly recommended
Format:Paperback
Ethnography & Sociology in a fictional story. A country trying to find itself after war & social crisis. It made me look back at my own background and rediscover the culture & country I was born in, Mozambique.
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