The Book of Chameleons
Author(s): Jose Eduardo Agualusa
WINNER OF THE INDEPENDENT FOREIGN FICTION PRIZE 2007 Set in contemporary Angola, The Book of Chameleons is populated with characters whose victories never quite settle. Like any one of us, they can forget things that have happened to them, and remember things that never did. Theirs is a world where the truth seems to shift from moment to moment, where history itself is up for grabs. AgualusaâÂÂs slippery narrator takes us on a vivid and enthralling journey across the shifting landscape of memory and history, and â from his unique perspective â reveals a breathtaking love story too. âÂÂFierce originality, vindicating the power of creativity to transform the most sinister acts. His writing is brought vividly home to us by Daniel Hahnâ â Amanda Hopkinson, The Independent âÂÂIngenious, consistently taut and wittyâ â TLS â â¦ âÂÂA beautiful fictionâÂÂ. It has grace, agility, wit, a lovely inventiveness.â â Boyd Tonkin, The Independent âÂÂA poetic, beguiling meditation on truth and storytelling and a political thriller and a wholly satisfying murder mysteryâ â New Internationalist
Product Information
Winner of Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2007.
Jose Eduardo Agualusa was born in Huambo in 1960 and is one of the leading young literary voices from Angola, and from the Portuguese language today. His first book, The Conspiracy, a historical novel set in Sao Paulo de Luanda between 1880 and 1911, paints a fascinating portrait of a society marked by opposites, in which those who can adapt have any chance of success. Creole, which has evoked comparisons with Bruce Chatwin's The Viceroy of Ouidah, was awarded the Portuguese Grand Prize for Literature, while The Book of Chameleons won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2007 ('not since Gregor Samsa's metamorphosis have we had such a convincing non-human narrator' Independent). Arcadia will publish The Rainy Season, which depicts the devastating history of an Angola tormented by 30 years of civil war, in 2009. Agualusa divides his time between Angola, Brazil and Portugal.
General Fields
- :
- : Arcadia Books
- : Arcadia Books
- : books
Special Fields
- : Jose Eduardo Agualusa
- : Paperback