It's a brief tale of power and tyranny and it's consequences, lightened by lyrical prose and threaded with a very real sense of mystery and the very temporal nature of human existence. The novella is beautifully written from several POV, including the dry and sparse dispatches of the Portuguese officers as they engage with resistance. He had valourised the last ruler of the Gaza Empire, Ngungunhane, whose fight against colonial Portugal in the late nineteenth century mirrored the victory of FRELIMO in the war of independence some eighty years later.
The novella was written as a critique of the Marxist rule of the charismatic leader Samora Machal in the nineteen eighties. There's a really helpful introduction explaining the historical context and the politics of post independence Mozambique. It's a novella that explores the period of Mozambique history which Mia Couto later expanded on in his trilogy and I'm planing to read the first book in that series Women of the Ashes. EDIFÍCIO DO ANTIGO TRIBUNAL - CAFÉ DAS LETRAS OLD COURT BUILDING - THE SCRIPT ROAD CAFÉ Autores e os Seus Livros The Writers and Their Books. I read this as part of the #invisiblecitiesproject where we're reading translated fiction from three countries a month.
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