The cartographer of absences : a novel / Mia Couto ; translated from the Portuguese by David Brookshaw.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Couto, Mia, 1955- Author.

Contributor:

Brookshaw, David, translator.

Standardized Title:

Mapeador de ausências. English http://id.loc.gov/resources/hubs/67ab28bf-bf40-3ea2-85c8-0e8b70068d9c

Language:

English

Portuguese

Subjects (All):

Intellectuals--Mozambique--Fiction.

Intellectuals.

Mozambique--Fiction.

Mozambique.

Beira (Mozambique)--Fiction.

Beira (Mozambique).

Genre:

Fiction

Novels

Translations

Novels.

Physical Description:

306 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

First American edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025.

Summary:

"A novel about a father and son, both poets, set before and after the fall of the Portuguese Empire in Mozambique"-- Provided by publisher.

"Diogo Santiago is a celebrated Mozambican poet and intellectual, a well-known professor at the university in his country's capital. In 2019, on the eve of a cyclone that will devastate the East African coast, he returns to his hometown of Beira to receive a tribute from his fellow citizens. As he travels across Mozambique, his mind returns to the past--to his own upbringing, and to the history of his country when it was still a Portuguese colony. Diogo's father, himself a poet and a journalist, observed a terrible massacre committed during the waning days of the Estado Novo and was persecuted by the PIDE, the Portuguese secret police. Diogo's reflections on his father's life are interspersed with found documents--letters, stories, entries in the journal kept by the PIDE agent who oversaw the case. As Cyclone Idai approaches Beira, threatening to wipe away the physical traces of the world in which he grew up, Diogo is forced to confront the impermanence of his own memories, too. A haunting novel of historical witness, The Cartographer of Absences is one of Mia Couto's finest works. Drawing on the author's own life in colonial Mozambique, this book is a significant new entry in the world literature canon."-- Provided by publisher.

Notes:

"Originally published in Portuguese in 2020 by Editorial Caminbo, Portugal, as O Mapeador de ausências"--Title page verso

ISBN:

9780374616311

0374616310

OCLC:

1478325928

Publisher Number:

CIPO000281391