Mozambique: China hands over 20,000sqm cultural centre in Maputo
DW / Launch of the work "O Bebedor de Horizontes" in Maputo
The author of ‘O Bebedor de Horizontes’ [‘The Drinker of Horizons’], the last work in his trilogy “The Sands of the Emperor” released this November, says the book was “the biggest challenge” of his literary journey.
In the book, Couto tells the story of Ngungunhana, the Emperor of Gaza, who was seized by the Portuguese in 1895 in the Chaimite region and taken to the Azores archipelago. Portugal considered his capture – Gaza was considered one of the greatest kingdoms of Africa at the time – a demonstration to Europe of its strength.
At the launch of the book in Maputo, Mia Couto said that “this was the biggest challenge” since he started his career in literature. “I came out exhausted but happy,” says the writer, adding: “I realised why it is said that literature is a kind of lie, and in this case, I can denounce the author of this book as a fabricator of various lies.”
“Some of them have already been denounced: I’m pretending to be talking about other people, but I’m talking about ourselves. I’m lying when I say that I’m talking about the past, but I’m talking about the present. And this is what excited me in writing this book,” the writer said.
In this work, the last monarch of Gaza – a vast empire stretching from the south of to the Zambezi river – is described as controversial, at times strong and others weak.
Ngungunhana and his wives and children were seized and taken to the Azores, where the Lion of Gaza had only the horizon, intoxicating in its hallucinations, to gaze upon – whence the title of the book.
The book reveals the “false differences” that divide the Mozambicans and who today “situate themselves once again in the history of Mozambique”.
“There is a journey that is made within us and it needs permanent contact with others, so that others stop being others and become someone inside us, healing the false differences that divide us.”
In the work, Mia Couto says that he avoids constructing “good” and “bad” characters. Literature, he says, has the power to show that differences in society “are simply superficial or circumstantial”.
“There is no such thing as Ngunis, a thing called Chopis, a thing called white or black. They are historical constructions that are always called great truths when it comes to making conflicts and hatreds, when it comes to suggesting that the path is not one of dialogue but of confrontation,” he says.
In this trilogy, the first two volumes came out three years ago. They are ‘Mulheres de Cinza’ [‘Women of Ash’] and ‘A Espada e a Azagaia’ [‘The Sword and the Azagaia’], both of which feature Ngungunhana as the main character.
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