{"title":"Books by Jose Eduardo Agualusa","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781529421750","title":"The Living and the Rest","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"The limitless possibilities of fiction are brilliantly utilised . . . Ingenious\" \u003ci\u003eIrish Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Agualusa's funny and lively tale turns increasingly ominous ahead of an explosive conclusion\" \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eFinancial Times \u003c\/i\u003eFiction in Translation Book of the Year 2023\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDaniel lives with artist Moira on her native Island of Mozambique. They are awaiting the birth of their child, while also organising the island's first literary festival. But as soon as the first festival guests arrive, the coast is hit by a cyclone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe island is spared, but the bridge to the mainland is left impassable, and telephone and internet connections are severed. The islanders - and the writers who have come for the festival - are cut off from the outside world. Left to their own devices, the authors forge new bonds and make the best of a situation that gets stranger each day. Some believe they're in an intermediate realm, a kind of limbo, and some have no choice but to write, as the boundaries between reality and fiction, past and future, and life and death begin to blur.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhere do we go when it's all over? Perhaps to a small island. This is a novel about the nature of life and of time, and the extraordinary power of imagination and the written word, capable of creating anything and regenerating everything.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTranslated from the \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003ePortuguese\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e by Daniel Hahn\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43204880203954,"sku":"9781529421750","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781529421750.jpg?v=1786023649"},{"product_id":"9781529426489","title":"The Book of Chameleons","description":"\u003cb\u003eIngenious, consistently taut and witty' \u003ci\u003eTLS\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'Humorous and quizzical, with a light touch on weighty themes, the narrative darts about with lizard-like colour and velocity' \u003ci\u003eIndependent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'Strange, elliptical, charming' \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'A poetic, beguiling meditation on truth and storytelling . . . from the dreamscapes of magical realism to a gripping political thriller and even a murder mystery' \u003ci\u003eNew Internationalist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Félix Ventura trades in memories, a slippery character selling new pasts to people whose bright futures lack only a good lineage, and wiping clean the slate of their identity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In a narrative that darts between past and present Angola, a bookish albino man, a beautiful woman, a mysterious foreigner and a witty talking lizard come together to discover their real origins. For theirs is a world where the truth seems to shift from moment to moment and where history itself is up for grabs . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWINNER OF THE \u003ci\u003eINDEPENDENT \u003c\/i\u003eFOREIGN FICTION PRIZE\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'A work of fierce originality' \u003ci\u003eIndependent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Without doubt one of the most important Portuguese-language writers of his generation' ANTÓNIO LOBO ANTUNES\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Cross J. M. Coetzee with Gabriel García Márquez and you've got José Eduardo Agualusa' ALAN KAUFMAN\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTranslated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56302923645301,"sku":"9781529426489","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781529426489_ca8fad19-9392-4bfd-92ad-b91afe16fbf1.jpg?v=1786023800"},{"product_id":"9780099593126","title":"A General Theory of Oblivion","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD 2017\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA finalist for the Man Booker International Prize 2016 \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe brilliant new novel from the winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the eve of Angolan independence, Ludo bricks herself into her apartment, where she will remain for the next thirty years. She lives off vegetables and pigeons, burns her furniture and books to stay alive and keeps herself busy by writing her story on the walls of her home. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe outside world slowly seeps into Ludo’s life through snippets on the radio, voices from next door, glimpses of a man fleeing his pursuers and a note attached to a bird’s foot. Until one day she meets Sabalu, a young boy from the street who climbs up to her terrace.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56311556768117,"sku":"9780099593126","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780099593126_b501eb50-c02b-4ec4-9ba8-1b551f209e67.jpg?v=1786011603"},{"product_id":"9780956318800","title":"Paradise and Other Hells","description":"José Eduardo Agualusa is the kind of man who asks Siri if she believes in God and connects her second response (because why would you accept the first?) to a question he is asked about which Portuguese is his Portuguese. This capacity for weaving seemingly disparate threads into fascinating texts lies at the heart of Agualusa’s work as both journalist and novelist. In Paradise and Other Hells, we see both sides come together, humanised further by touches of the mundane: a father marvelling at the wonder of his daughter’s hair, the absolute logic of his son’s naïveté; an older man musing about ageing and funerals.   Whether riffing on Jorge Luis Borges and his relationship with time, dissecting the political landscape of Angola, unpacking Fernando Pessoa’s casual racism, reflecting on the theory of dreams; or in awe at the beauty of Mozambique Island (where he lives), examining the influence of Africa and Brazil on contemporary Portuguese language, this is a book that reveals a mind constantly at work, a pen always at play with language, and it fizzes with Agualusa’s trademark humour and proboscis-sharp observation.   Blending excerpts from his diary with columns published in the press, this is an intricate book that still allows for stop-start reading. In the short article, God is Sick, José Eduardo Agualusa asserts that ”people who are sure that their beliefs are based in good sense are open to discussion. They put forth arguments. They defend a certain line of thinking...” That is precisely what Paradise and Other Hells does, it opens a discussion of the world with the world, and that is the secret of its timelessness.   Translated from Portuguese by a team of some of the finest contemporary translators — Rahul Bery (David Trueba’s Rolling Fields), Andrew McDougall, Robin Patterson (Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis’s Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas), Francisco Vilhena (Adelaide Ivanova’s the hammer and other poems) and José Eduardo’s longtime translator, Daniel Hahn, OBE — and written with a convivial spirit, reading this book is akin to sitting next to a sparkling companion at a memorable dinner party, where the meal is secondary to warm, erudite conversation. Paradise and Other Hells is José Eduardo Agualusa as you’ve never read him before.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56367830466933,"sku":"9780956318800","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-jose-eduardo-agualusa.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}