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.
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“José Eduardo Agualusa is a literary trickster who dazzles with his artificial fictional creations…Agualusa is a master of varied genre structure…but his heart is deeply invested in his characters, and each individual’s story burns itself into the reader to make us reconsider our capacity for empathy and understanding.”
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Minneapolis Star Tribune