Under the Frangipani

“An original and fresh tale, quite unlike anything else I have read from Africa. I enjoyed it very much.”—Doris Lessing

“A peculiarily African sensibility . . . a writer of fluid, fragmentary narratives. . . . Remarkable.”—New Statesman

A police inspector is investigating a strange murder—a case in which all the suspects are eager to claim responsibility for the act.

Set in a former Portuguese slave fort, Under the Frangipani combines fable and allegory, dreams and myths with an earthy humor. Part thriller, part an exploration of language itself, Mia Couto’s novel surprises and delights.

Mia Couto works as an agronomist in Maputo, Mozambique.

Captivating magical realism from a leading African writer.

Publishers Weekly

Death seeps its wily way into every corner of the living world in this lyrical novel by Mozambican writer Mia Couto. At the start of Under the Frangipani, the narrator, a dead man, is assigned to occupy the body of a police inspector who is investigating the murder of the director of an old people's refuge housed in a former Portuguese fort. Dreamily narrated, but sharp in outline, Couto's novel is a richly rewarding real-life fable set far from the world as Western readers know it. Trans. from the Portuguese by David Brookshaw. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Mia Couto was born in 1955 in Mozambique and is the most prominent writer in Portuguese-speaking Africa. He has been active as a journalist and during the revolutionary struggle headed the AIM news agency. He now lives in Maputo where he works as an environmental biologist and runs the Mozambique part of the Kruger National Park.