Four books by writers from Mozambique, set there, that give a real sense of the place, starting with Confession of the Lioness and Voices Made Night.
Mia Couto, a biologist from Beira, is Mozambique's best-known writer and won the Camões Prize for Portuguese-language literature in 2013. The country became independent from Portugal in 1975 and then endured a civil war until 1992, a history that runs through Couto's fiction. Portuguese is the official language, and the country's oral storytelling traditions feed into Couto's writing.
Voices Made Night gathers short stories of rural and small-town life after independence. Under the Frangipani is a murder mystery narrated by a ghost in a decaying fortress turned asylum, as war gives way to uneasy peace. Confession of the Lioness is set in a remote northern village terrorised by lions. Woman of the Ashes portrays the fall of the Gaza Empire to Portuguese conquest in the 1890s in southern Mozambique.
“Find a copy” goes to Bookshop.org. If you buy, we earn a small commission and independent bookshops get a share too.
Set in a remote northern village terrorised by lions, it explores gender, tradition and the impact of outside interests on rural communities.
Short stories of rural and small-town Mozambique after independence, drawing on oral storytelling, poverty and everyday life.
A ghost-narrated murder mystery in a decaying fortress-turned-asylum, reflecting Mozambique's transition from war to uneasy peace.
Set in 1890s southern Mozambique, it portrays the fall of the Gaza Empire under Portuguese conquest and local rivalries.
Algeria Angola Benin Botswana Burkina Faso Burundi Cabo Verde Cameroon Central African Republic Chad Comoros Congo Côte d'Ivoire Djibouti DR Congo Egypt Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Eswatini Ethiopia Gabon Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Kenya Lesotho Liberia Libya Madagascar Malawi Mali Mauritania Mauritius Morocco Namibia Niger Nigeria Rwanda São Tomé and Príncipe Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone Somalia South Africa South Sudan Sudan Tanzania Togo Tunisia Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe