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Ondjaki Angola
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Ondjaki was born in Luanda in 1977. He completed his
degree in Sociology in Lisbon in 2002 with a study on the great Angolan writer
Luandino Vieira. A versatile young talent and a most promising writer of the
Portuguese language in Africa, he has already had paintings exhibited, given
public performances as an actor, as well as published his own poems and novels.
Ondjaki has been awarded the Grande Prémio de Conto Camilo Castelo Branco
2008 by the Portuguese
Writers' Association for his novel Os da Minha Rua. In 2008 he was
distinguished with the Grinzane for Africa award, in category of young
writer.
O
Assobiador (“The Whistler”): There are
some books that are surprising because they are so completely unexpected - not
in their appearance, but in their method. O Assobiador (The Whistler) is
such a book. As a product of Angola, a country riven by civil war and its
after-effects for the past 30 years, a novel of such laughter and unmitigated
hope comes as a welcome shock. (Richard Bartlett)
One October morning, while it is raining, a young man arrives at a small African village, with a church on one side and a smiling baobab tree on the other. He enters the church and starts whistling. The sound is so beautiful, that the priest is left in tears and the doves listen in absolute silence. And there are the people of the village, like the madman KaLua, the old widow Dona Rebenta in her large wooden bed, the gravedigger KoTimbalo, KeMunuMunu, the travelling salesman and Dissoxi, who fills her house with sea salt and longs for the ocean. For a whole week the reader accompanies these characters, their dreams and their longings, the village’s whisperings and gossiping. All are surrendered to the moods of these melodies. But the whistler himself is affected by the inhabitants of the village. His melodies can rouse happy or sad feelings. The priest announces that the following Sunday mass will be held with the whistler. On the Sunday he bewitches the priest and the people in the church to such an extent, that they fall in a state of trance and unimagined sensuality and zest for life. The mass is followed by an orgiastic celebration. On Monday the whistler and KeMunuMunu leave the village and the reader likewise bids his wistful farewell to a bewitching world.
Seldom before has a story of such joy and such hope come from a country of such tragedy and such sorrow.
Richard Bartlett, AFRICAN REVIEW OF BOOKS
Bom
dia camaradas (“Good Morning, Comrades”) is the
loving memory of a childhood in Angola, around 1990. The young narrator, a keen
observer, gives an uninhibited and humorous description of the small adventures
of everyday life in a city marked by decades of civil war. Comrade Antonio, the young narrator asks the loyal African servant,
don’t you think things are better now
that the country is free? But comrade Antonio has good memories of the old
days; a lot of things were better in the
time of the white man. But things are slowly improving, much is happening
at school, and at the end of term the beloved Cuban teachers, who are not
exactly spoilt by wealth either, will take their leave, since the country will
be able to look towards its future by itself.
Childhood
is a former time that will always return,
says the author. He depicts an Angolan childhood marked by all the country’s
difficulties, but also by happiness. This is a book that will especially appeal
to younger readers.
The
novel Quantas madrugadas tem a noite (“How many Dawns has the Night”) is
also set in Luanda. Ondjaki again shows his talent as a story-teller. His
figures come to life in the idiom of the oral tradition, with a wealth of word
creations and allusions to the country’s regional languages. Provinciality and
cosmopolitanism, new riches and abject poverty clash in a city that has arrived
in the 21st century although still marked by decades of war and undergoing
radical changes.
The
plot of AvóDezanove e o Segredo Soviético (“Grandma Dezano-ve and the
Soviet Secret”) is set in Praia do Bispo near Luanda, Angola, in the 1980s,
when both Cuba and the Soviet Union still had major army contingents there. The
young narrator lives here with his grandmother
Agnette, also called AvóDezanove, and several other members of his
family. The Russian officer Bilhardov, whom everybody calls simply Botardov
because of his Russian pronunciation of the greeting “Boa tarde”, is
particularly fond of AvóDezanove and longs to take her back home with him to
the Soviet Union.
A
huge Soviet-style mausoleum is being built in honour of the deceased head of
state Agostinho Neto, and there are rumours that the neighbouring houses will
be demolished and the people of Praio do Bispo will have to move. Someone has
even heard the word “dynamite” on Botardov's lips. The narrator and his friend
Pinduca decide to take action. They sneak into the building site, steal some
explosives and dig holes across the site. To ignite the explosion they need
alcohol, which their friend Charlita gets for them by stealing a bottle of
whisky from her father. Unfortunately, it is not enough to wet all the fuses.
The
plan goes awry, yet a few minutes after Pinduca and the narrator leave the
mausoleum site there are several explosions, a veritable fire-work display. A
letter written by Botardov to AvóDezanove concludes the novel, revealing that
it was Botardov who detonated the explosives. He wanted to stop the home of
AvóDezanove and her family from being pulled down, and is now returning to the
Soviet Union without his great love.
Represented for Caminho, Portugal
Original editions and rights sold:
Novels:
O Assobiador, Lisbon: Caminho 2002, 117 p.
Argentina: Letranómada ● Italy: Lavoro 2005 ● Schweden: Tranan 2009 ● UK: Aflame
Books 2008
Bom dia
camaradas, Lisbon: Caminho 2003, 138 p.
Canada: Biblioasis (English
rights for Canada and USA) 2008 ● Italy: Iacobelli ● Mexico: Almadia 2008 ● Serbia: Kreativni Centar 2009 ● Switzerland: La Joie de Lire (French rights), NordSüd
2006 (German rights) ● Uruguay: Banda Oriental 2005
(Uruguay only)
Quantas
madrugadas tem a noite, Lisbon:
Caminho 2004, 196 p.
Italy: Lavoro 2006
Avódezanove e
o segredo do soviético,
Lisbon: Caminho 2008, 198 p.
Brazil: Companhia das
Letras
Stories:
Momentos de aqui, Lisbon: Caminho 2001, 144 p.
E se amanhã o
medo,
Luanda: INALD 2004, 125 p.
Spain:
Xordica (Spain only) 2007
Os da minha rua,
Lisbon: Caminho 2007, 124 p.
Switzerland: La Joie de Lire
(French rights) 2007 ●
Poetry:
Há
prendisajens com o xão, Lisbon: Caminho 2002, 70 p.
Materiais
para confecção de um espanador de tristezas
Lisbon: Caminho 2009, 88 p.
For
children:
Ynari. A menina
das cinco tranças, Lisbon: Caminho 2004, 43
p.
(Illustrations by Danuta Wojciechowska)
Brazil: Companhia das
Letras
As asas do
Golfinho, Lisbon: APCC 2008
O leão e o
Coelho Saltitão, Lisbon: Caminho 2008, 41
p.
(Illustrations by Rachel
Caiano)