Новинки Миа Коуту

“Masterfully wrought . . . Confession of the Lioness sings with the musical nuance of a poem.” ―Heather Scott Partington, Los Angeles Times

“Couto's work doesn't so much blur the generic and stylistic boundaries we normally draw as explode them . . . Confession of the Lioness reads as a parable of human savagery and its consequences. It shows how humans might transform, literally and metaphorically, into animals; how violence, once committed, takes on an independent and inexorable life.” ―Anthony Domestico, The Boston Globe

“Myths, magic, tradition and reality intersect to the extent that it becomes difficult to tell them apart. . . [Couto's] magical realism is never too cute, instead leaning toward a dispassionate, documentary portrayal of unlikely interpretations of ugly events” ―Dave Burdick, The Denver Post

“It's an old-fashioned tale whose earthy wisdom and shimmering magic will make you want to discover more of Couto's work.” ―Nicole Jones, Vanity Fair

“A meditation on the nature of memory . . . [Couto is] a brilliant aphorist. There are countless sentences that, in David Brookshaw's clean-cut translation from the Portuguese, have the weight and wisdom of ancient proverbs.” ―Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

“A rich tale in which the spirit world is made real, animals are controlled by people, and dead ancestors are feared for their power to destroy cities. Couto also manages to explore the clash of disparate belief systems-tribal, Islam, Christian-in postcolonial Africa and deftly weaves in a critique of the embedded patriarchy” ―Kirkus Reviews

Told through two haunting, interwoven diaries, Mia Couto’s Confession of the Lioness reveals the mysterious world of Kulumani, an isolated village in Mozambique whose traditions and beliefs are threatened when ghostlike lionesses begin hunting the women who live there.

Mariamar, a woman whose sister was killed in a lioness attack, finds her life thrown into chaos when the outsider Archangel Bullseye, the marksman hired to kill the lionesses, arrives at the request of the village elders. Mariamar’s father imprisons her in her home, where she relives painful memories of past abuse and hopes to be rescued by Archangel. Meanwhile, Archangel tracks the lionesses in the wilderness, but when he begins to suspect there is more to them than meets the eye, he starts to lose control of his hands. The hunt grows more dangerous, until it’s no safer inside Kulumani than outside it. As the men of Kulumani feel increasingly threatened by the outsider, the forces of modernity upon their traditional culture, and the danger of their animal predators closing in, it becomes clear the lionesses might not be real lionesses at all but spirits conjured by the ancient witchcraft of the women themselves.

Both a riveting mystery and a poignant examination of women’s oppression, Confession of the Lioness explores the confrontation between the modern world and ancient traditions to produce an atmospheric, gripping novel. 

Mwanito was eleven when he saw a woman for the first time, and the sight so surprised him he burst into tears.

Mwanito has been living in a former big-game park for eight years. The only people he knows are his father, his brother, an uncle, and a servant. He’s been told that the rest of the world is dead, that all roads are sad, that they wait for an apology from God. In the place his father calls Jezoosalem, Mwanito has been told that crying and praying are the same thing. Both, it seems, are forbidden.

The eighth novel by the internationally bestselling Mia Couto, The Tuner of Silences is the story of Mwanito’s struggle to reconstruct a family history that his father is unable to discuss. With the young woman’s arrival in Jezoosalem, however, the silence of the past quickly breaks down, and both his father’s story and the world are heard once more.

The Tuner of Silences has been published to acclaim in more than half a dozen countries. Now in its first English translation, this story of an African boy's quest for the truth endures as a magical, humanizing confrontation between one child and the legacy of war.

Роман мозамбикского писателя Миа Коуту (1955) «Божьи яды и чертовы снадобья» поначалу не выглядит странным. Молодой врач португалец приезжает в Мозамбик в поселок с говорящим названием Мгла, чтобы жениться на любимой девушке, уроженке этих мест, с которой он познакомился в Лиссабоне. Девушка, как ему объяснили, в отъезде, и врач изо дня в день навещает ее родителей, тем более, что отец девушки тяжело болен. Фон – авантюрная политическая жизнь страны, предвыборная кампания и проч. Но чем дальше, тем больше повествование приобретает иллюзорные черты. Герои романа излагают чужаку каждый свою версию произошедшего с девушкой…
Перевод с португальского Екатерины Хованович.

An old man and a young boy, refugees from a civil war, seek shelter in a burnt out bus. Among the effects of a dead passenger, they discover a set of notebooks that tell of his life. As the boy reads the story to his elderly companion, the tale gradually becomes part of their own lives. Sleepwalking Land, Mia Couto?s first novel, was an immediate success, and judged at the Zimbabwe Bookfair 2001 to be one of the 12 best African books of the 20th century. Set in the author?s native Mozambique, the novel examines the effects of war and devastation on a newly independent African nation. A sombre book, it reflects a moment in the history of Mozambique when the country could only go forward after settling its account with the bloody past. Deftly exploring the relationship between oral tradition and the written word, truth and fiction, memory and invention, this is a memorable book that captures a critical moment in Africa?s history.