The brilliant novel from the winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
On the eve of Angolan independence, Ludo bricks herself into her apartment, where she will remain for the next thirty years. She lives off vegetables and pigeons, burns her furniture and books to stay alive, and keeps herself busy by writing her story on the walls of her home.
As the country goes through various political upheavals from colony to socialist republic to civil war to peace and capitalism, the outside world slowly seeps into Ludo’s life through snippets on the radio, voices from next door, glimpses of a man fleeing his pursuers, and a note attached to a bird’s foot. Until one day she meets Sabalu, a young boy from the street who climbs up to her terrace.
José Eduardo Agualusa is one of the leading literary voices in Angola and the Portuguese language today. His books have been translated into over twenty languages, several of them into English. He has received literary grants from the Centro Nacional da Cultura, the Fundação do Oriente, and the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst. Agualusa has also written four plays: W generation, O monólogo, Chovem amores na Rua do Matador, and A Caixa Preta, the last two with Mia Couto.View all by José Eduardo Agualusa
