Reviews

• Wonderful book

  This is a wonderful book set in Angola based on a story about a Portuguese woman who bricked herself in after independence. But it's a lot more than that with a great list of characters and an ending that draws all the threads of the book together.

• Unique!

  A very unusual story but thoroughly engaging nevertheless. Heartfelt and moving. Matters of trust should never be taken at face value. Several stories are interwoven to make an interesting narrative.

• Great read for anyone who enjoys reading literary fiction.

  A woman during a revolution decides to lock herself up in her home for decades with only her dog and books for company and the terrace garden and city pigeons for food. Despite this, she still remains connected to the world outside, and her supposedly contained gestures within this space (letting a pigeon go free, etc.) creates critical consequences to the narratives happening outside. An intricately constructed page-turner of a plot written in flawlessly translated, invisible prose that reads like it's on rails.

• Beautiful

  Magnificient. Agualusa is asking life a few questions...and he is watcing himself watch and this is his tragedy. A long poem in prose.

• A clever sense of disconnection

  Ludo's has never liked to be outside, she stays inside and cooks and cleans for her sister and her husband. So the build up to Angolan Independence largely passes her by. When neither returns home on the eve of Angolan independence, she bricks herself into her apartment. She stays there for the next thirty years, living off vegetables and pigeons and writing her story on the walls of her home. Meanwhile life in Angola moves on. A variety of characters take the spotlight and their stories touch Ludo’s. There is a communist private detective, a reporter investigating the mysterious disappearances of airplanes and people, a Portuguese mercenary who survives a firing squad, and a nine-year-old boy who eventually climbs some scaffolding and moves in with Ludo. It is an unusual book when you consider that it is really about the impact of great passions and yet it’s tone is quite muffled and distant. It’s quite clever, it is reminiscent of the sense of shock and disbelief after such events that leaves people feeling disconnected and drained. Many people put their heads down and focus on small areas after huge events, as I write this I’m still reeling from the aftershocks of the vote on the EU referendum and in the light of that I can see the authenticity of this book. Life goes on, we find a way, we may have to go inwards and focus on the minutiae of daily life. But we keep breathing. NB I received a free copy of this book through NetGalley in return for an honest review. The BookEaters always write honest reviews [...]

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