Jaime Bunda, Secret Agent

African detective fiction in all its glory

James Bond step aside - Jaime Bunda is here… and you may well have to step aside because this Angolan 007 namesake, whose name means “fat arse”, is seriously overweight and could just squash you as he tries to squeeze by.

This satirical novel by Pepetela - the guerrilla code-name and pen-name of the celebrated Angolan writer Artur Pestana - is set in modern-day Luanda and tells the tale of an incompetent detective embroiled in crimes of passion and international criminal networks as he stumbles from one meal to the next.

• Pepetela writes:
  “Jaime Bunda was seated in the big room set aside for detectives. There were three desks, at which a few other investigators struggled with obsolete computers. There were also some chairs lined up against the wall. It was on one of these, the one at the end, that Jaime had settled his abundant arse, out of all proportion to the rest of his body, and which physical characteristic had led to his name.”

A hilarious comedy of errors that unfolds in a world of corruption and nepotism, Jaime Bunda is also a post-modernist story in which Pepetela challenges his own place as writer, the problems of modern Angola and its place in the world.

Stephen Henighan writing in the Times Literary Supplement said: “Pepetela is an ambitious writer, but he is rarely subtle. He has a compelling narrative gift and a deep emotional investment in his characters. He writes in efficient standard Portuguese, seasoned with a very mild sprinkling of African words.”

Pepetela ... has a compelling narrative gift and a deep emotional investment in his characters.
Times Literary Supplement

Despite being well read in the practices of American private detectives, he is not allowed anywhere near police work, until the murder of a 14-year old girl. Jaime, is hand-picked for the case, to the surprise of everyone but himself.
With the tenacity and agility of Inspector Clouseau, of Pink Panther fame, Bunda follows every single lead to its perfectly illogical end. The efficiency of his incompetence is only made more hilarious by the arrogance which Clouseau lacked, and which Bunda unconsciously embraces and wields in a fashion that makes him a perfect civil servant.
African Review of Books

• Read a review from African Review of Books
• Read a review from Complete Review
• Read an extract (PDF)