Under the Frangipani [Paperback]

Mia Couto (Author), David Brookshaw (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2008

“An original and fresh tale, quite unlike anything else I have read from Africa. I enjoyed it very much.”—Doris Lessing

“A peculiarily African sensibility . . . a writer of fluid, fragmentary narratives. . . . Remarkable.”—New Statesman

A police inspector is investigating a strange murder—a case in which all the suspects are eager to claim responsibility for the act.

Set in a former Portuguese slave fort, Under the Frangipani combines fable and allegory, dreams and myths with an earthy humor. Part thriller, part an exploration of language itself, Mia Couto’s novel surprises and delights.

Mia Couto works as an agronomist in Maputo, Mozambique.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Death seeps its wily way into every corner of the living world in this lyrical novel by Mozambican writer Mia Couto. At the start of Under the Frangipani, the narrator, a dead man, is assigned to occupy the body of a police inspector who is investigating the murder of the director of an old people's refuge housed in a former Portuguese fort. Dreamily narrated, but sharp in outline, Couto's novel is a richly rewarding real-life fable set far from the world as Western readers know it. Trans. from the Portuguese by David Brookshaw.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"'This is an original and fresh tale quite unlike anything else I have read from Africa. I enjoyed it very much' Doris Lessing 'Mia Couto is a white man with an African soul' Henning Mankell 'Couto is the most prominent of the younger generation of writers in Portuguese-speaking Africa. Couto passionately and sensitively describes everyday life in poverty-stricken Mozambique' Guardian 'To read Mia Couto is to encounter a peculiarily African sensibility, a writer of fluid, fragmentary narratives... a remarkable novel' New Statesman 'A powerful and trenchant evocation of life in a society traumatised by decades of war and poverty' New Internationalist"

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Serpent's Tail (September 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1846686768
• ISBN-13: 978-1846686764
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #230,957 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Written to capture the spirit of post-independence Africa, September 17, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Under the Frangipani (Paperback)

Under The Frangipani is a macabre murder mystery with a shadow of the fantastic, for the narrator is the murder victim - now a night spirit come back from the dead to possess the Mozambican police inspector investigating the crime! This story molds dreams, fables, allegory as well as troubled African history rife with Portuguese colonial ravages, civil war, and most recently, the depredations of Western materialism. Written to capture the spirit of post-independence Africa, Mia Couto's Under The Frangipani is a unique, page-turning tale meant to challenge preconceptions and embolden the spirit.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and well written, July 1, 2007

By 

Gogol (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Under the Frangipani (Paperback)

I am a fan of Mia Couto having read several of his books this is probably the easiest to get into. Set in a home for old people in revolutionary Mozambique it is a sort of murder mystery which forms a backdrop of the general condition of the world outside the home, the changing face of Africa, the hope and betrayal of the people by revolutionaries who fought in their name.

The book is touching and exposes the human trajedy of each of the residents of the home each who have a story to tell and each of whom are a victim in their own way of the changing world around them.

A beutiful peice of literature by a great African writer.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars struggle, September 2, 2004

By 

Matko Vladanovic (Zagreb, Croatia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Under the Frangipani (Paperback)

Long ago, whe history of humankind was just unravelling itself, kingdoms lived in peace...and as the history unraveled, kingdoms waged wars. Human and humane were on the verge of existence unnumerable times before... and finally it came to stagnation, mind you, stagnatin, not peace. And in the spirit of that stagnation, this book was born. Africa, the oldest continent, which lived as civilisation passed by, still, after blodshed of colonialism, lives... and it is not a life of beauty, but the life itself. You could call the storyline of the book irrelevant. You have to read it for the simplest of reasons... you will not catch that feeling of pure serenity nowhere else, you will not find it in here also, but even the glimpse will do to change your life forever.