From 18:00 pm on May 10, the Manuel Teixeira Gomes Municipal Library will be attended by renowned Portuguese-speaking authors Mia Couto and José Eduardo Agualusa, who will launch their latest works in Portimão, respectively, “A Confissão da Leoa” and “ General Theory of Oblivion”.
In “A Confessão da Leona”, stamped by Editorial Caminho, Mozambican writer Mia Couto addresses a real event – the successive deaths of people caused by lion attacks in a remote region in the north of his country – and from there he weaves a surprising work that speaks of lions and hunting, but also of men and women living in extreme conditions.
As one of the characters states, "here there is no police, there is no government, and even God there is only sometimes", so the book will expose to the reader how war, hunger, superstition can turn men into animals wild, through the version of Mariamar, inhabitant of the village of Kulumani, and the diary of Gustavo Baleiro, the hunter hired to kill the lions, and who are the two narrators of this story.
As for the Angolan writer Agualusa, he places “Theory of Oblivion” in Luanda on the eve of independence, which took place in 1975: a Portuguese woman, terrified of the evolution of events, erects a wall separating her apartment from the rest of the building – from the rest of the world.
For almost thirty years she will survive with difficulty, like a castaway on a desert island, seeing around Luanda grow, exult, suffer, which makes this novel, edited by Don Quixote, a reflection on the fear of the other, on the absurdity of racism and of xenophobia, about love and redemption.
On the occasion, the two authors will exchange views with the public about these works and their literary career, before participating in autograph sessions.
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