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A Practical Guide to Levitation: Stories
A luminous collection of dryly humorous stories that revel in the surreal and fantastic, from the pen of José Eduardo Agualusa, winner of the International Dublin Literary Award
Perfect for readers of Haruki Murakami, Julio Cortázar, and Namwali Serpell’s The Old Drift
Vividly translated into English for the first time by long-time Agualusa collaborator Daniel Hahn, the jewel-like tales gathered in this collection are an exuberant celebration of story-telling in all its various forms.
On the sands of Itamaracá, an old fisherman dreams of shad in the morning, when the water’s smooth and silvery, the Atlantic tarpon after it rains, and a jack when the sea goes blue. Elsewhere, Borges sulks away in a plantation of neverending banana tree, and the president of the United States wakes from a coma speaking only Portuguese.
With “the lyrical experimentalism and unabashed weirdness of the surrealist” ( The Arts Desk ), Agualusa offers a sly wink to the fictional quality inherent in all narratives, whether they’re fishermen’s tales, national histories, or the stories we tell ourselves.
Perfect for readers of Haruki Murakami, Julio Cortázar, and Namwali Serpell’s The Old Drift
Vividly translated into English for the first time by long-time Agualusa collaborator Daniel Hahn, the jewel-like tales gathered in this collection are an exuberant celebration of story-telling in all its various forms.
On the sands of Itamaracá, an old fisherman dreams of shad in the morning, when the water’s smooth and silvery, the Atlantic tarpon after it rains, and a jack when the sea goes blue. Elsewhere, Borges sulks away in a plantation of neverending banana tree, and the president of the United States wakes from a coma speaking only Portuguese.
With “the lyrical experimentalism and unabashed weirdness of the surrealist” ( The Arts Desk ), Agualusa offers a sly wink to the fictional quality inherent in all narratives, whether they’re fishermen’s tales, national histories, or the stories we tell ourselves.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
18 people are currently reading
297 people want to read
About the author
José Eduardo Agualusa
78 books781 followers«José Eduardo Agualusa [Alves da Cunha] nasceu no Huambo, Angola, em 1960. Estudou Silvicultura e Agronomia em Lisboa, Portugal. Os seus livros estão traduzidos em 25 idiomas.
Escreveu várias peças de teatro: "Geração W", "Aquela Mulher", "Chovem amores na Rua do Matador" e "A Caixa Preta", estas duas últimas juntamente com Mia Couto.
Beneficiou de três bolsas de criação literária: a primeira, concedida pelo Centro Nacional de Cultura em 1997 para escrever « Nação crioula », a segunda em 2000, concedida pela Fundação Oriente, que lhe permitiu visitar Goa durante 3 meses e na sequência da qual escreveu « Um estranho em Goa » e a terceira em 2001, concedida pela instituição alemã Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst. Graças a esta bolsa viveu um ano em Berlim, e foi lá que escreveu « O Ano em que Zumbi Tomou o Rio ». No início de 2009 a convite da Fundação Holandesa para a Literatura, passou dois meses em Amsterdam na Residência para Escritores, onde acabou de escrever o romance, « Barroco tropical ».
Escreve crónicas para o jornal brasileiro O Globo, a revista LER e o portal Rede Angola.
Realiza para a RDP África "A hora das Cigarras", um programa de música e textos africanos.
É membro da União dos Escritores Angolanos.»
http://www.agualusa.pt/cat.php?catid=27
-----
José Eduardo Agualusa (Alves da Cunha) is an Angolan journalist and writer born to white Portuguese settlers. A native of Huambo, Angola, he currently resides in both Lisbon and Luanda. He writes in Portuguese.
He has previously published collections of short stories, novels, a novella, and - in collaboration with fellow journalist Fernando Semedo and photographer Elza Rocha - a work of investigative reporting on the African community of Lisbon, Lisboa Africana (1993). He has also written Estação das Chuvas, a biographical novel about Lidia do Carmo Ferreira, the Angolan poet and historian who disappeared mysteriously in Luanda in 1992. His novel Nação Crioula (1997) was awarded the Grande Prémio Literário RTP. It tells the story of a secret love between the fictional Portuguese adventurer Carlos Fradique Mendes (a creation of the 19th century novelist Eça de Queiroz) and Ana Olímpia de Caminha, a former slave who became one of the wealthiest people in Angola. Um Estranho em Goa ("A stranger in Goa", 2000) was written on the occasion of a visit to Goa by the author.
Agualusa won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2007 for the English translation of his novel The Book of Chameleons, translated by Daniel Hahn. He is the first African writer to win the award since its inception in 1990.
(wikipedia)
Escreveu várias peças de teatro: "Geração W", "Aquela Mulher", "Chovem amores na Rua do Matador" e "A Caixa Preta", estas duas últimas juntamente com Mia Couto.
Beneficiou de três bolsas de criação literária: a primeira, concedida pelo Centro Nacional de Cultura em 1997 para escrever « Nação crioula », a segunda em 2000, concedida pela Fundação Oriente, que lhe permitiu visitar Goa durante 3 meses e na sequência da qual escreveu « Um estranho em Goa » e a terceira em 2001, concedida pela instituição alemã Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst. Graças a esta bolsa viveu um ano em Berlim, e foi lá que escreveu « O Ano em que Zumbi Tomou o Rio ». No início de 2009 a convite da Fundação Holandesa para a Literatura, passou dois meses em Amsterdam na Residência para Escritores, onde acabou de escrever o romance, « Barroco tropical ».
Escreve crónicas para o jornal brasileiro O Globo, a revista LER e o portal Rede Angola.
Realiza para a RDP África "A hora das Cigarras", um programa de música e textos africanos.
É membro da União dos Escritores Angolanos.»
http://www.agualusa.pt/cat.php?catid=27
-----
José Eduardo Agualusa (Alves da Cunha) is an Angolan journalist and writer born to white Portuguese settlers. A native of Huambo, Angola, he currently resides in both Lisbon and Luanda. He writes in Portuguese.
He has previously published collections of short stories, novels, a novella, and - in collaboration with fellow journalist Fernando Semedo and photographer Elza Rocha - a work of investigative reporting on the African community of Lisbon, Lisboa Africana (1993). He has also written Estação das Chuvas, a biographical novel about Lidia do Carmo Ferreira, the Angolan poet and historian who disappeared mysteriously in Luanda in 1992. His novel Nação Crioula (1997) was awarded the Grande Prémio Literário RTP. It tells the story of a secret love between the fictional Portuguese adventurer Carlos Fradique Mendes (a creation of the 19th century novelist Eça de Queiroz) and Ana Olímpia de Caminha, a former slave who became one of the wealthiest people in Angola. Um Estranho em Goa ("A stranger in Goa", 2000) was written on the occasion of a visit to Goa by the author.
Agualusa won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2007 for the English translation of his novel The Book of Chameleons, translated by Daniel Hahn. He is the first African writer to win the award since its inception in 1990.
(wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
July 24, 2023
4.5 rounded up.
https://shonareads.wordpress.com/2023...
I’ll read any fiction from one of my favourite authors, Angola-born, Mozambique-based writer José Eduardo Agualusa. He and his wonderful translator, Daniel Hahn, have a way with words, the fantastical and the surreal, bringing ghosts to life with dry humour, and immersing us in alternate cosmologies, showing us other ways the world might be. Agualusa’s treatment of Angola’s history is always slightly farcical, very humorous, and also quite sad, which seems appropriate to histories of liberation movements in Africa.
In the opening story in this collection of very short (?flash) fiction, Borges wakes up in heaven, or hell—an endless banana plantation, but he finds consolation in possibilities. In another story, a man offers to teach a party guest levitation. Levitation is also the theme in a later story about a potential Angolan political leader. Old liberation war heroes and famous authors are a frequent theme. A dog-charmer trains dogs to help him swindle people, and a bird-charmer first uses his skills in the war, against the enemy, and then later as a fortune-teller. A pensive despot shares his musings on how he got to where he is. In one story, a baobab offends the sensibilities of a modest public, and in another, a man goes around rescuing other baobabs—until he encounters a tree that’s swallowed something unexpected. A man with a Russian name travels around the Huambo highlands showing movies. K40 is the name of a crack shot who has retired to a farm. There are laughing lizards for sale at the side of a highway. Open To The Breeze is a beautiful and evocative story about a place that’s trapped in time. There’s a delightful story about butterflies and Queen Nzinga. Finally, in a thoughtful, although light, examination of Jonas Savimbi’s myth and legacy, we meet Savimbi’s daughter.
Agualusa’s boundless imagination and his particular brand of the surreal, as well as his distinctive style, are on full display in this wonderful collection. All of the stories are quite short, making this the perfect book to read whenever you want to take a break from the ordinary—real and boring life—to escape into the fantastical.
Highly recommended.
Thank you to Edelweiss and to Archipelago Books for this DRC.
https://shonareads.wordpress.com/2023...
I’ll read any fiction from one of my favourite authors, Angola-born, Mozambique-based writer José Eduardo Agualusa. He and his wonderful translator, Daniel Hahn, have a way with words, the fantastical and the surreal, bringing ghosts to life with dry humour, and immersing us in alternate cosmologies, showing us other ways the world might be. Agualusa’s treatment of Angola’s history is always slightly farcical, very humorous, and also quite sad, which seems appropriate to histories of liberation movements in Africa.
In the opening story in this collection of very short (?flash) fiction, Borges wakes up in heaven, or hell—an endless banana plantation, but he finds consolation in possibilities. In another story, a man offers to teach a party guest levitation. Levitation is also the theme in a later story about a potential Angolan political leader. Old liberation war heroes and famous authors are a frequent theme. A dog-charmer trains dogs to help him swindle people, and a bird-charmer first uses his skills in the war, against the enemy, and then later as a fortune-teller. A pensive despot shares his musings on how he got to where he is. In one story, a baobab offends the sensibilities of a modest public, and in another, a man goes around rescuing other baobabs—until he encounters a tree that’s swallowed something unexpected. A man with a Russian name travels around the Huambo highlands showing movies. K40 is the name of a crack shot who has retired to a farm. There are laughing lizards for sale at the side of a highway. Open To The Breeze is a beautiful and evocative story about a place that’s trapped in time. There’s a delightful story about butterflies and Queen Nzinga. Finally, in a thoughtful, although light, examination of Jonas Savimbi’s myth and legacy, we meet Savimbi’s daughter.
Agualusa’s boundless imagination and his particular brand of the surreal, as well as his distinctive style, are on full display in this wonderful collection. All of the stories are quite short, making this the perfect book to read whenever you want to take a break from the ordinary—real and boring life—to escape into the fantastical.
Highly recommended.
Thank you to Edelweiss and to Archipelago Books for this DRC.
June 9, 2024
Whimsical short stories from Brazil and Angola told in simple but effective language. The tension between Portuguese colonialism and native cultures is present in all of these stories but doesn’t overburden them. Instead characters like the ghost of Jorges Luis Borges, an albino Angolan man working as Santa Claus, and a man who can talk to dogs through “olfactory messages” give each story its own unique heart.
November 11, 2023
A compellingly weird collection of (often very short) short stories from Angolan author Agualusa via Archipelago Books. Since many of these stories are experimental, I can't say all of them hit for me, but that's to be expected. Glad to have been exposed to this work. Wonderful translations from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn.
July 4, 2018
Hoje terminei de ler o delicioso livro Manual Prático de Levitação do escritor angolano José Eduardo Agualusa. Este é o segundo livro de sua autoria que leio. Fiquei muito satisfeita em perceber que todo o encanto de linguagem e de temática que haviam me conquistado da primeira vez nas páginas de O vendedor de passados, permaneceu, vingou e cresceu, para minha total gratificação. Gosto de sua prosa, de seu humor, de sua imaginação e da delicadeza com que consegue abordar temas especialmente difíceis entre eles a guerra e suas infinitas e variadas conseqüências.
Diferente do anterior, este é um livro de contos, alguns pequeninos, tamanho bolso, mas que dão conta do recado com grande encanto. Estes contos nos oferecem uma breve viagem por Angola, Brasil e Outros Lugares de Errância. Esta é uma edição para o Brasil, uma coletânea de contos outrora publicados em Portugal e Angola. A eles só foram adicionados três contos inéditos: Os cachorros, O ciclista e Manual Prático de Levitação que dá o nome ao livro. A capa nesta edição da editora Gryphus já é sedutora o suficiente para mim. Trata-se de uma livre adaptação de um quadro do pintor belga René Magritte, cujos trabalhos fizeram parte não só do meu mestrado como do meu curso de doutoramento em história da arte. Nesta criação de Tite Zobaran e Mariane Esberard sobre o quadro Le chef d’oeuvre , duas silhuetas do homem com o chapéu coco se desdobram como se olhassem cada qual para um continente, mas são tão etéreas quanto o céu azul, levemente nublado que as preenche. Os autores foram muito felizes neste arranjo porque não só traz à tona a dualidade dos contos através de Angola e do Brasil como também o espírito onírico de grande parte da prosa Agualusa.
Este é um livro leve, de contos, retratos falados, quase-crônicas que devem ser lidas e apreciadas por todo tipo de leitor. São meras 150 páginas de encantamento. Vale a leitura!
Diferente do anterior, este é um livro de contos, alguns pequeninos, tamanho bolso, mas que dão conta do recado com grande encanto. Estes contos nos oferecem uma breve viagem por Angola, Brasil e Outros Lugares de Errância. Esta é uma edição para o Brasil, uma coletânea de contos outrora publicados em Portugal e Angola. A eles só foram adicionados três contos inéditos: Os cachorros, O ciclista e Manual Prático de Levitação que dá o nome ao livro. A capa nesta edição da editora Gryphus já é sedutora o suficiente para mim. Trata-se de uma livre adaptação de um quadro do pintor belga René Magritte, cujos trabalhos fizeram parte não só do meu mestrado como do meu curso de doutoramento em história da arte. Nesta criação de Tite Zobaran e Mariane Esberard sobre o quadro Le chef d’oeuvre , duas silhuetas do homem com o chapéu coco se desdobram como se olhassem cada qual para um continente, mas são tão etéreas quanto o céu azul, levemente nublado que as preenche. Os autores foram muito felizes neste arranjo porque não só traz à tona a dualidade dos contos através de Angola e do Brasil como também o espírito onírico de grande parte da prosa Agualusa.
Este é um livro leve, de contos, retratos falados, quase-crônicas que devem ser lidas e apreciadas por todo tipo de leitor. São meras 150 páginas de encantamento. Vale a leitura!
August 26, 2023
the circus is the world condensed. like condensed milk — kind of artificial, but much sweeter. us folk learn to laugh. learn to laugh to combat the pain.the eighth of josé eduardo agualusa’s books to appear in english translation, a practical guide to levitation is the first to collect the angolan author’s short fiction. offering thirty stories (many drawn from his 2005 collection, manual prático de levitação), a practical guide to levitation contains writing smart, funny, lively, and occasionally doleful. agualusa flirts with magical realism, but mythologizes a realm all his own. though most of the stories are but a few pages in length, they’re long on perspicacity, playfulness, and prodigious imagination. “borges in hell,” “how sweet it is to die in the sea,” “k40,” “the interpreter of birds,” “on the perils of laughter,” and “the outrageous baobab” are among the collection’s finest entries (though there really isn’t a single weak one). agualusa is always an absolute delight to read!
“there’s so much scrub in you, you can no longer even see the road.”*translated from the portuguese by daniel hahn (halfon, tavares, saramago, millás, villalobos, saavedra, et al.)
4.5 stars
September 13, 2024
imaginative fabulism (redundant, i know) that still manages to strike a casual tone. When it's good, it is very good (the story about the President of America waking up to find he cannot speak English anymore), but sometimes its all a bit airy. There's a lot of bad political art because it prioritizes the politics over the art (unfortunately the aesthetics are still there even if you ignore them); but the opposite can also feel a bit odd and weightless: work that seems to express a distaste for political conviction at all. It's not every story in this collection, but it was enough to remind me that I should really read The Splendor of Portugal
November 12, 2024
Brilliant..
February 19, 2015
Sao contos que se passam em Angola, são contos triste que relatam ou a tristeza, ou a solidão ou a pobreza ou a guerra ou tudo isso junto.
Na segunda parte do livros os contos se passam no Brasil. O primeiro é sobre uma festa! e pior! os pratos e talheres são de plásticos, mas a comida servida é coelho. O segundo é sobre o assalto! O último é sobre brasileiro falando q português não fala português! :O
A terceira foi a que eu achei mais interessante. Gostei do autor porque ele escreve verdades, não é hipócrita. Vale a pena a leitura.
Na segunda parte do livros os contos se passam no Brasil. O primeiro é sobre uma festa! e pior! os pratos e talheres são de plásticos, mas a comida servida é coelho. O segundo é sobre o assalto! O último é sobre brasileiro falando q português não fala português! :O
A terceira foi a que eu achei mais interessante. Gostei do autor porque ele escreve verdades, não é hipócrita. Vale a pena a leitura.
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October 2, 2024Didn't get past the first three or so stories... Unreadable for me, I just felt like there was so much lacking
September 16, 2023
Normally I like to review short story collections by giving a nod to the plot of all the successful pieces, but here this would take too long. It's a hiding to nothing here, anyway, to itemise everything and hope for a grand, over-arching theme, for this is just a large box of delights, and whatever one you grab on to will probably appeal. Here is the sword-swallower who gained a stomach ulcer, and his thoughts on how the circus and the real world are pretty much similar, here the writer stumped by bad reviews and good women to become a hotelier. Someone teaches levitation, another communicates with his dogs through the medium of odour. Someone can make people float once knocked out by some concoction or other.
And nor are the stories, as fantastical as they might get, confined to the one country, for while having an opening spread of them in Brazil, we turn to Portuguese Africa – Angola and the like – for the greater block. That's not always to our good, mind, for the longest piece at the midway point really did nothing for me, and some later on weren't to my taste as much either. But what is that taste – what is the feel of all this?
Well, we find the most apposite phrase late on, and surely the truest line written by anyone anywhere – "I don't give a damn about reality". And that will be the sticking point here, for this could just tell us of colonial life, of brigands and guerrillas and people finding themselves subject to conmen and fraudsters and occupiers. This does that with a dose almost of magical realism, to such an extent you don't quite have a handle on how serious any of this is. The laughing lizard that inspires gunfire – is that a metaphor, or fantasy, or just a story about a laughing lizard? Coming to this blind, knowing nothing of the author's style, intent, history, etc, is an unsettling feeling – but one of the pleasant ones.
So overall the hit rate did diminish for me towards the end, but again I have no idea if this block of writing is several years' worth of 'best of', or just a lockdown splurge or what. Its random, "dislike that – there's a different one along in a minute" onrush was what appealed, as well as the author's ability to pull the rug without ill-will – so often a book surprises for the wrong reasons, here it's just for pleasure and the joy of it, and not for the showboating, or the "trying something new" (meaning "trying something everyone else knew was sh*t, therefore didn't bother"). This is unlikely to light up anyone's world, but will quite easily go down as a most pleasant discovery – and that's definitely four stars in my book.
And nor are the stories, as fantastical as they might get, confined to the one country, for while having an opening spread of them in Brazil, we turn to Portuguese Africa – Angola and the like – for the greater block. That's not always to our good, mind, for the longest piece at the midway point really did nothing for me, and some later on weren't to my taste as much either. But what is that taste – what is the feel of all this?
Well, we find the most apposite phrase late on, and surely the truest line written by anyone anywhere – "I don't give a damn about reality". And that will be the sticking point here, for this could just tell us of colonial life, of brigands and guerrillas and people finding themselves subject to conmen and fraudsters and occupiers. This does that with a dose almost of magical realism, to such an extent you don't quite have a handle on how serious any of this is. The laughing lizard that inspires gunfire – is that a metaphor, or fantasy, or just a story about a laughing lizard? Coming to this blind, knowing nothing of the author's style, intent, history, etc, is an unsettling feeling – but one of the pleasant ones.
So overall the hit rate did diminish for me towards the end, but again I have no idea if this block of writing is several years' worth of 'best of', or just a lockdown splurge or what. Its random, "dislike that – there's a different one along in a minute" onrush was what appealed, as well as the author's ability to pull the rug without ill-will – so often a book surprises for the wrong reasons, here it's just for pleasure and the joy of it, and not for the showboating, or the "trying something new" (meaning "trying something everyone else knew was sh*t, therefore didn't bother"). This is unlikely to light up anyone's world, but will quite easily go down as a most pleasant discovery – and that's definitely four stars in my book.
March 3, 2025
I picked this up as part of an effort to read fiction from Angola, and it certainly ticks the box with regard to ranging across colonial and post-colonial Angolan settings. However, the short stories also often connect strongly to Brazil, holding hands across the Atlantic more explicitly than other Angolan fiction I've read. With thirty entries crammed into 240 small pages, it's safe to say that readers who don't enjoy a story won't have to wait long for the next one. A handful are of your more typical 15-20 pages length, but most are in the "flash-fiction" range of 4-6 pages.
The overall tone is fairly literary and often pushes into, if not magical realism, then something fairly adjacent (it's no accident that the opening story is a joke about Borges and Garcia Marquez being mistaken for each other). The literary world is present in a number of stories, invoking Clarice Lispector, José Luandino Vieira (whose works I would recommend seeking out), the author himself, and various other writers and collectors of tales. None of these are bad, they just get a little too navel-gazing for me.
Many of the other stories carry an element of fable or the supernatural or unexplained about them -- people are reputed to be able to converse with animals, or disappear in a cloud of butterflies, and so forth. Again, none of these are poorly done, and there's an imaginative skill to them, but they felt rather slight and inconsequential to me. In many cases I found myself thinking that the story had a premise and tone that could have been developed further and expanded upon in either a graphic or film version. So while I appreciated much of what I read, I don't think much of it will remain with me very long.
The overall tone is fairly literary and often pushes into, if not magical realism, then something fairly adjacent (it's no accident that the opening story is a joke about Borges and Garcia Marquez being mistaken for each other). The literary world is present in a number of stories, invoking Clarice Lispector, José Luandino Vieira (whose works I would recommend seeking out), the author himself, and various other writers and collectors of tales. None of these are bad, they just get a little too navel-gazing for me.
Many of the other stories carry an element of fable or the supernatural or unexplained about them -- people are reputed to be able to converse with animals, or disappear in a cloud of butterflies, and so forth. Again, none of these are poorly done, and there's an imaginative skill to them, but they felt rather slight and inconsequential to me. In many cases I found myself thinking that the story had a premise and tone that could have been developed further and expanded upon in either a graphic or film version. So while I appreciated much of what I read, I don't think much of it will remain with me very long.
February 13, 2024
What a great, unexpected find. I understand if you generally avoid short story collections. Nowadays, more than a few such collections end up presenting as technically accomplished, but also sterile, indulgent, and rather pointless. Not so here. While of course the appeal of the various stories can vary, one is mostly guaranteed to find stories that are whimsical, slightly edgy, and peppered with a generous and worldly sense of humor. The tales are written in a variety of styles, reflect various points of view, and cover a wide range of genre and topic territory. Some are frankly humorous tales; some are slyly humorous confessionals, some are deadpan sendups of such icons as Borges or of overused tropes of magical realism, and some bring about a sudden realization or feeling out of the blue, These are refreshingly original and singular, and a bracing breath of fresh air and invigorating playfulness. Reading Agualusa feels like being taken into his confidence and sharing a private joke with him. What a treat.
June 24, 2024
Jose Eduardo Agualusa has definitely become one of my favorite authors. After devouring A General Theory of Oblivion during the pandemic, this collection of short stories—in some cases boarding on flash fiction levels of length—jumped to the top of my reading list.
Agualusa weaves surrealist musings, mundane tragedies and poignant moments of introspection into these stories. His brevity and wit are unmatched as are his attention to details and the vivid brush with which he paints these characters. Daniel Hahn also provides a brilliant translation that captures the flow and ease of Agualusa’s depth of prose.
I can already predict myself tucking into the stories of this collection time and again like a well-worn sweater or that recipe you turn to when you miss someone and need to fill your home with their presence once more.
Agualusa weaves surrealist musings, mundane tragedies and poignant moments of introspection into these stories. His brevity and wit are unmatched as are his attention to details and the vivid brush with which he paints these characters. Daniel Hahn also provides a brilliant translation that captures the flow and ease of Agualusa’s depth of prose.
I can already predict myself tucking into the stories of this collection time and again like a well-worn sweater or that recipe you turn to when you miss someone and need to fill your home with their presence once more.
August 1, 2023
Jose Eduardo Agualusa is one of my favourite novelists. I discovered him by having A General Theory of Oblivion pressed into my hand by a customer who told me I had to read it. To read his short stories is a treat. They are clever, witty and very original. The writing is beautiful, and you never know where you will be taken in the tale.
June 20, 2024
Slightly detached and third-wall breaking. The most memorable story is the Borges one, but after those first few pages Agualusa takes you on a long journey of magical realism and imagination. The post-colonial struggles of Angola and the place in the world of portuguese-speaking people come up as frequent themes. A quick read, enjoyable.
October 7, 2025
Kind of want to refrain from rating this book at all because I don’t feel I entirely grasped it. So much reference to Portuguese and Angolan history that I know nothing about (for example, Angola was a Portuguese colony??) So my rating is very unfair, but it is what it is!
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December 23, 2023beautiful short stories on Angola, Brasil and everything in between. also some evel, some angels, some dreams and magic
a good, easy read for calm moments
a good, easy read for calm moments
March 4, 2024
Like reading a lucid dream
June 3, 2025
Ironic, fantastical and characteristically funny short stories by the master storyteller. They read more as scraps on a napkin compared to his novels, but they were enjoyable still.
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August 17, 2025Absurdist Angolan shorts, reminiscent of Etgar Keret. I dug it.
June 3, 2025
Очень понравилось! Немного Сарамаго, немного Мураками, сразу хочется в Анголу.
January 11, 2024
3.4 - Wasn’t enthralled by every single story, but some (like the titular piece) are very charming.
April 6, 2024
Been listening to a lot of 70s Angolan music in the last year, so in searching for a mental film to accompany the soundtrack, hoo boy, did this spark some wild imagery! Opening with a snarky piece about a recently deceased Borges accidentally ending up in his Personal Hell, Garcia Marquez’s Personal Heaven, was a nice palate cleanser for the smorgasbord to come. Ingredients: communing with animals (maybe), the art of levitation (perhaps), accidentally starting wars (possibly), alternatives to death (or not), robberies gone wrong (or right), love (lost) lost (love), and much, much more (limited to 200-ish pages). I loved it and would surely love more.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews