José Eduardo Agualusa, a writer and journalist, is one of the
leading literary voices in Angola and the Portuguese language
today. His books have been translated into 25 languages. Four of
his books have been translated into English: Creole (2002), winner
of the Portuguese Grand Prize for Literature; The Book of
Chameleons (2006), which won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize;
My father's wives (2008), and Rainy Season (2009). 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
written with Mia Couto.
Daniel Hahn is the author of a number of works of non-fiction. His
translation of The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa won
the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2007. He has translated
the work of José Luís Peixoto, Philippe Claudel, María Dueñas, José
Saramago, Eduardo Halfon, Gonçalo M. Tavares, Corsino Fortes, and
others.
Shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize
Winner of the Dublin International Literary Award
Shortlisted for the Three Percent Best Translated Book Award
Winner of the 2019 Angolan National Prize for Culture and
Arts
"Like Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa and Argentine Jorge Luis
Borges, Portuguese-Angolan writer José Eduardo Agualusa is a
literary trickster who dazzles with his artificial fictional
creations... Agualusa is a master of varied genre structure,
and he has great fun shifting from spy novel to pastoral narrative
to interior reflection, 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."
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
"A master storyteller...It’s a tribute to Agualusa’s storytelling
that the bittersweet redemption found by his characters feels
authentic; he and they have earned it."
—Washington Independent Review of Books
"The story challenges what we imagine to be the clearly drawn
lines between 'hero' and 'villain' and forces a reconsideration of
history and our fictions. It does what the best of literature
ought to do: keep us glued to our seats, unable to break away."
—Maaza Mengiste, Words Without Borders
"The story of Ludo bricking herself in her apartment on the eve of
Angolan independence and staying there for 30 years had me thinking
of our present times. What if being indoors becomes the new normal?
Would we deal with it as Ludo does and what world do we then find
when eventually we get out? Will it be better? But it’s also a book
about the redemptive powers of love and how humanity needs each
other. Because although Ludo thinks she is okay being alone, when
she finally bonds with Sabalu, a young boy who scales her wall, her
life changes."
—Zukiswa Wanner, Mail & Guardian
"Each page brimming with imagination."
—The Irish Independent
"In this tale, based on real-life events, one of Angola’s most
inventive novelists has found the perfect vehicle to examine
his country’s troubled recent past. . . Alongside Mozambique’s
Mia Couto (shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker International),
Agualusa has already become one of lusophone Africa’s most
distinctive voices."
—Financial Times
"The translation ... is seamless, with the light detachment and
readability of Louis de Bernières at his best, but combined with
the sharp insights of JM Coetzee ... Agualusa’s writing is a
delight throughout, as he opens up the world of Portuguese-speaking
Africa to the English-speaking community. And what a world it
is."
—The Scotsman
"Hahn is one of our most experienced translators. Such experience
shows in tiny interventions to guide the English reader
through the chaos of the Angolan battlefield ... and in his taking
confident ownership of certain descriptive passages, ensuring the
music of the original is conveyed along with the meaning... a
timely homage to the prize of Angolan independence."
—The Independent
"A General Theory of Oblivion is both more and less than its title;
it certainly provides a kind of blueprint of the encroaching
obscurity inherent to living and dying—at times bemoaning its
certainty, at times celebrating the assured darkness—but it is
also a general theory of love, of life, and, finally, of
literature. Working in the fertile ground between fiction,
philosophy, and enchantment, Agualusa has accomplished
something strange and marvelous here, a whirling dervish of joy and
pain, blood and memory, whose many high points I found myself
re-reading immediately, eager to experience the shine of the prose
like spun gold. It left me in awe of these stories we tell
ourselves: those we need to survive, those that change us, and
those that change with us."
—Dustin Illingworth, Quarterly Conversation
"Cross J.M. Coetzee with Gabriel García Márquez and you've got José
Eduardo Agualusa, Portugal's next candidate for the Nobel
Prize."
—Alan Kaufman, author of Matches
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK OF CHAMELONS
"Humorous and quizzical, with a light touch on weighty themes, the
narrative darts about with lizard-like colour and velocity.
Agulausa's delightful novel skitters across minefields with grace
and poise."
—Boyd Tonkin, The Independent.
"Ingenious, consistently taut and witty."
—The Times Literary Supplement
"Strange...elliptical...charming."
—Guardian
"A book as brisk as a thriller and as hot and alarming as the most
powerful kind of dream."
—Michael Pye, author of The Pieces from Berlin
"A work of fierce originality."
—The Independent
"A subtle beguiling story of shifting identities."
—Kirkus
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