I ordered this online because I had read about the author being a celebrated African writer and that the book had been chosen as one of the 12 best African books of the twentieth century.
It's the story of an old man and a young boy who are wandering a road in their war torn country, Mozambique. They discover a journal of another displaced young man in an abandoned bus. Their circumstances and the story in the journal are interwoven in a dream-like manner to portray the devastation and upheaval of war. This style is challenging to follow and though a short book, it took me several evenings to read.
The author paints the landscape and characters in wispy images. A quote I noted:
p. 39 - "Ideas, we all know, are not born in people's heads. They begin somewhere out there, loose wisps of smoke swirling directionless in their search for a befitting mind."
I can't say I'd recommend the book, but it was a different choice.
Published: 1988 (English translation 2006) Read: February 2012 Genre: Fiction
Half.com listing
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