Ondjaki
Translated by Richard Bartlett
ISBN: 9780955233975
Size: 216mmx140mm
Paperback
104 pages
Available: Feb 08
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Whistling up joy in Angola
A stranger wafts into a village with no name and sets to whistling as he wanders idly through the church, hypnotising the doves in the rafters and bringing the priest to tears with his haunting tune.
Thus begins a week of whispers and gossip that culminates in a Sunday Mass celebrated with orgasmic fervour - literally - as the whistler's enchanting tune bewitches the frustrated faithful.
Spellbinding, irreverent and hilarious, Ondjaki's comic masterpiece from Angola is a triumph of joy over adversity in a country ravaged by sorrow that will make the reader weep with its mirth and passion.
The Whistler can be seen as an unexpected, yet welcome, antidote to the painful after-effects of the civil war that traumatised the author's homeland for 30 years by offering a vision of hope and humanity to a people asleep with their pain.
The Whistler is the first work by one of Africa's most promising writer in the Portuguese language to be made available in English and was translated from the Portuguese original, O Assobiador.
- “There are some books that are surprising because they are so completely unexpected - not in their appearance, but in their method. O Assobiador (The Whistler) is such a book. As a product of Angola, a country riven by civil war and its after-effects for the past 30 years, a novel of such laughter and unmitigated hope comes as a welcome shock.” - African Review of Books
- Read a review at African Review of Books
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Born in Luanda in 1977, Ondjaki is a versatile young talent who has also exhibited paintings and given public performances as an actor.
He has published one other novel, the autobiographical Bom dia camaradas (2003 and forthcoming in English), as well as a number of poetry and short story collections, and a children's book
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