"Extraordinary vision . . . his prose is suffused with striking images."—The Washington Post
"To read Mia Couto is to encounter a peculiarly African sensibility, a writer of fluid, fragmentary narratives . . . remarkable."—The New Statesman
With a magical realism that blurs the boundaries between life and the afterlife in Mozambique, Mia Couto captures Africa today—a brilliant dissonance of old and new sounds.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
extremely complex family drama,
This review is from: A River Called Time (Paperback)
In Mozambique, the family patriarch Dito Mariano is near death. His family already divided and spread across the civil war wracked nation is further split because he was the only one holding them together. Still they all make a pilgrimage to pay homage to Dito as they come to bury him and the obsolete past he represents.
His grandson Mariano is among those who have come to Nyumba-Kaye, his grandfather's house named in two languages, for the funeral. Although he has been at school, he understands family tradition and hopes to reconcile the Northern and Southern sides of the family in honor of his ancestor. However, his Uncle Ultimio plans to convert Nyumba-Kaye into a luxury hotel although he knows his father would loathe the idea that he markets it to the family as development, but the whispers of the past including his grandfather tells Mariano the younger to save the family heritage from the ravages of the curse called progress. This is an extremely complex family drama that brings to life Mozambique through the divided live and ironically dead members of the Mariano brood. There is no easy linear chronological order to the deep storyline as the grandfather and his grandson narrate the goings-on past and present in a realm where ancestors reside along with those souls who never made it out of the womb alive; each has a tale to tell through Dito who has one foot with them and one foot with his warring family that emulates the civil war that has ravaged the island nation. A RIVER CALLED TIME is a complicated and rightfully convoluted super look at a different culture. Harriet Klausner
2.0 out of 5 stars
Africa review of A River called Time,
This review is from: A River Called Time (Paperback)
A non African will not enjoy this book as much as us who have lived through Africa and its ongoing struggle for survival. The philosophy and references, conditions and traditions will be foreign.
Heartbreaking truth is generations after liberation 'freedom' got worse.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
