Written in the aftermath of civil war, these early stories are among Mia Couto's freshest, most original fiction. In tales that mingle playful comedy with surprising plot twists and magical events, fishermen, fortune-tellers, widows, cross-dressers, small-town drinkers and even an errant hippopotamus, rediscover life's possibilities and the ability to dream. A new translation of brilliant stories by Man Booker-finalist and author of Confession of the Lioness.
Author Biography
Mia Couto, an environmental biologist from Mozambique, was a recent finalist for the Man Booker International Prize. He is the author of 25 books of fiction, essays, and poems in his native Portuguese. His most recent novel in English translation was Confession of a Lioness, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2015. Couto's novels and short story collections have been translated into 20 languages. He was the winner of the prestigious 2014 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. Eric M.B.Becker is the editor of the world literature journal " Words without Borders". He is a PEN/Heim-winning translator from the Portuguese. He was awarded a 2016 Fulbright Fellowship to translate Brazilian literature and will be spending 2016 in Brazil.
