| Our Musseque Contributor(s): Vieira, Jose Luandino (Author), Patterson, Robin (Translator) |
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ISBN: 1910213071 ISBN-13: 9781910213070 Publisher: Dedalus OUR PRICE: $14.39 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: August 2016 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Coming Of Age - Fiction | Cultural Heritage - Fiction | Biographical |
| Dewey: FIC |
| LCCN: 2015375153 |
| Series: Dedalus Africa |
| Physical Information: 0.6" H x 5.1" W x 8" (0.35 lbs) 188 pages |
| Themes: - Topical - Adolescence/Coming of Age - Cultural Region - Southern Africa - Chronological Period - 1940's - Chronological Period - 1950's |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Our Musseque is a tale of growing up in one of the vibrant shanty towns (musseques) of Luanda during the 1940s and 1950s. Weaving back and forwards through his half-remembered childhood, the narrator draws us into a close-knit world of labourers, shopkeepers, drunks, prostitutes and determined women battling to bring up their families, as Angola hurtles towards the beginning of its armed struggle against Portuguese colonial rule. Meanwhile the children laugh, play, squabble and fight, puzzle at racial taunts and move rapidly through adolescence towards sexual awakening and a greater awareness of political realities around them. Written in prison in 1961-62 but not published until over 40 years later, the novel is shot through with a sense of nostalgia for the lost innocence of childhood and a community swept away by the encroaching city, together with the exhilaration, hopes and fears for what is about to come. |
Contributor Bio(s): Vieira, Jose Luandino: - Jose Luandino Vieira was born in Portugal in 1935 and grew up in Luanda. He was one of a group of political activists whose trial in 1959 helped spark the Angolan uprising against colonial rule. He spent most of the following fifteen years in prison or under house arrest, until the collapse of the Portuguese dictatorship in 1974. He has published two novels (Nos, os do Makulusu (1974) and Nosso Musseque (2003)), two novellas and seven collections of short stories, He now lives in Portugal.Patterson, Robin: - Robin Patterson came late to literary translating, having previously pursued a legal career in various parts of the world. He has participated in both the Birkbeck and the BCLT literary translation summer schools and, in 2013, was mentored by Margaret Jull Costa as part of the BCLT mentorship programme. Our Mussseque is his first published translation. |