The Sword and the Spear A Novel
by Mia Couto
The second novel in the exhilarating Sands of the Emperor trilogy, following the Man Booker International Prize finalist Woman of the Ashes
Mozambique, 1895. After an attack on his quarters, the defeated Portuguese sergeant Germano de Melo needs to be taken to the hospital. The only one within reach is along the river Inhambane, so his lover Imani undertakes an arduous rescue mission, accompanied by her father and brother. Meanwhile, war rages between the Portuguese occupiers and Ngungunyane’s warriors—battles waged with sword and spear, until the arrival of a devastating new weapon destined to secure European domination. Germano wants to start a new life with Imani, but the Portuguese military has other plans for the injured soldier. And Imani's father has his own plan for his daughter’s future: as one of Ngungunyane's wives, she would be close enough to the tyrant to avenge the destruction of their village.
With elegance and compassion, Mia Couto's The Sword and the Spear illustrates the futility of war and the porous boundaries between apparently foreign cultures—boundaries of which entire societies, but also friends and lovers, conceive as simultaneously insuperable and in decline.
FictionLiteraryHistoricalWorld LiteratureAfricaEast Africa
RELEASED2020
PUBLISHERFarrar, Straus and Giroux
LENGTH288
LANGUAGEEN
Mia Couto (n. Beira, 5 de julho de 1955) é um escritor e biólogo moçambicano. Venceu o prémio Camões em 2013 e o prémio Neustadt em 2014. --- Mia Couto (b. Beira, 5 July 1955), is a Mozambican writer. He won the Camões Prize in 2013, and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 2014.
The Sword and the Spear A Novel
by Mia Couto
The second novel in the exhilarating Sands of the Emperor trilogy, following the Man Booker International Prize finalist Woman of the Ashes
Mozambique, 1895. After an attack on his quarters, the defeated Portuguese sergeant Germano de Melo needs to be taken to the hospital. The only one within reach is along the river Inhambane, so his lover Imani undertakes an arduous rescue mission, accompanied by her father and brother. Meanwhile, war rages between the Portuguese occupiers and Ngungunyane’s warriors—battles waged with sword and spear, until the arrival of a devastating new weapon destined to secure European domination. Germano wants to start a new life with Imani, but the Portuguese military has other plans for the injured soldier. And Imani's father has his own plan for his daughter’s future: as one of Ngungunyane's wives, she would be close enough to the tyrant to avenge the destruction of their village.
With elegance and compassion, Mia Couto's The Sword and the Spear illustrates the futility of war and the porous boundaries between apparently foreign cultures—boundaries of which entire societies, but also friends and lovers, conceive as simultaneously insuperable and in decline.
FictionLiteraryHistoricalWorld LiteratureAfricaEast Africa
RELEASED2020
PUBLISHERFarrar, Straus and Giroux
LENGTH288
LANGUAGEEN
Mia Couto (n. Beira, 5 de julho de 1955) é um escritor e biólogo moçambicano. Venceu o prémio Camões em 2013 e o prémio Neustadt em 2014. --- Mia Couto (b. Beira, 5 July 1955), is a Mozambican writer. He won the Camões Prize in 2013, and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 2014.
