Ever present in Mia Couto’s work is the burden of Mozambique’s recent past, the weight of memory that three decades of civil war impose on a population. With storylines and a lyrical style that crisscross between the material and spiritual worlds, his novels offer a subtle examination of the aftermath of political turmoil. It is a body of work that “weaves together the living tradition of legend, poetry and song”, as his shortlisting for the 2015 Man Booker International prize acknowledged.
Confession of the Lioness opens with a section related by Mariamar, the troubled daughter of a family living in the village of Kulumani. Her sister has just been killed, the latest victim of a marauding lion. Only part of her body is recovered. Local authorities are not much concerned about the fate of the villagers, but, desperate to avoid political fallout, they summon a hunter from the city to kill the beast. From here on, the story is told in alternating narratives, “Mariamar’s Version” and the “Hunter’s Diary” of Archangel Bullseye, a man battling his own family demons who, it turns out, may not be the saviour he is expected to be. Somewhere, in this elegantly structured and occasionally overlapping narrative, lies the confession of the beast herself.
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