The Madwoman of Serrano

by Dina Salústio, Jethro Soutar (Translator)

Serrano is an isolated village where a madwoman roams. But is she really mad or is she marginalized because she is wise and a woman? Could her babbling be prophecy? One day a girl falls from the sky and is found in the forest by Jeronimo. The villagers are suspicious of the newcomer, but Jeronimo falls in love with her. When she gives birth and disappears, Jeronimo takes care of the child, naming her Filipa. Years later, estranged from Jeronimo after being taken from the village in mysterious circumstances, Filipa is a successful businesswoman in the city. Her memories of growing up in Serrano and her friendship with the madwoman become increasingly vivid.

When the madwoman's warnings come true and Serrano's sheltered existence is threatened by plans to build a dam, Jeronimo heads for the city himself. Will he and Filipa finally be reunited?

Genres: Africa, Magical Realism, Cabo Verde, Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, 21st Century

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

#ReadAroundTheWorld. #Cabo Verde

This book is a story by Cabo Verdean author Dina Salústio, in fact the first novel written by a woman to be published in Cabo Verde (Cape Verde) and the first novel from that country to be translated into English. It is a story full of magical realism, love and loss. As the author says herself, “It is a story, then, like many others, of an unknown time and place, of everywhere and of always, a story in which women and men are crushed by too much beauty or, more commonly, too much cruelty”

Cabo Verde is an island archipelago in the Atlantic off West Africa. The people are predominantly Creole, the official language is Portuguese, but most people’s mother tongue is Creole. The islands were uninhabited when the Portuguese landed there in 1456, but were soon populated by slaves and Arabs taken from West Africa to work the plantations. The islands are largely Roman Catholic.

The story is set in the isolated village of Serrano which has no name for many centuries until made to choose one. It is a quiet dreamy place where no one laughs or thinks of new ideas. The men are sterile and rarely leave the village, the women must leave to have fertility treatment in the city and return pregnant with children not resembling their fathers. The village midwife is the most important person, initiating the men and delivering the children. The madwoman of Serrano is always on the fringes, shunned by the villagers but having a prophetic streak and being reincarnated periodically. The poverty of the village is contrasted with life in the city. “The poor were created for the powerful to get rich on, sin against and use to mock ideals of equality and seek their own salvation.”

Jeronimo eventually discovers a strange girl who has escaped a plane crash but is amnestic. He nurses her back to health and then raises the child, Filipa, she unexpectedly leaves him with. The story later follows these three characters to the city.

I found this story difficult to get into initially due to rapid transitions between points of view and time setting. I did find myself becoming invested in Jeronimo and Filipas’ story as it unfolded. Then the ending seemed rapid too. This was an interesting read but suffered from some pacing issues.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have very mixed feelings about this. I loved the beginning. The story of the tiny village of Serrano in Cape Verde. Particularly the stories of the women of the village: the midwives, the madwoman, Gremiana. I loved Jerónimo and Fernanda's story and young Filipa. I cared much less for the stories of the city dwellers. Older Filipa's endless droning on about the details of her hotel business and her various foster family members were quite a drag for me and I had to put it aside for a couple of months. It should have been a good contrast between the two very different ways of life and sets of characters; but I don't think the book was well balanced enough to achieve this. I also found it a little offensive the way that the villagers were often referred to as being lesser than the city folk. Less intelligent, foolish and simple minded. I struggled to look past this. But I'm glad I came back to it and finished what is, no doubt, a very interesting and unusual book and another step on my journey of reading women around the world

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Around the World Reading Challenge: CABO VERDE
===
2.5 rounded up

I'm always excited to find another magical realism book, and I thought this was interesting, though it didn't totally work for me. I liked the narrative style and the concept had me engaged, but the ending didn't really tie everything together the way I wanted. I was left without clarity on the Madwoman's purpose or how it connected to Filipa. I liked this one and there were a lot of interesting threads, but I left the book feeling like they hadn't all been connected effectively.

[Celia · Rating 4 out of 5]

From The Catch Me if You Can: One Woman's Journey to Every Country in the World written by Jessica Nabongo who has visited all 195 countries of the world. Still reading it but will refer to it when a country is included in the book.

"CABO VERDE IS AN ARCHIPELAGO and the westernmost point of Africa. It comprises 10 volcanic islands just west of Senegal, its closest neighbor."

Cabo Verde - Book 111 in my World Reading Journey

The Madwoman of Serrano is more a fantasy than a real travelogue book, but I enjoyed it just the same. It is written by a woman from Cabo Verde and the first from that country translated into English.

With its many characters, the book can sometimes be confusing. This extremely well-written review brings everything into perspective:

http://strangehorizons.com/non-fictio...

4 stars

[Sandra]

The poor were created for the powerful to get rich on, sin against and use to mock ideals of equality and seek their own salvation.

I'm so conflicted over this on one hand I love the characters, Jeronimo was everything, I really love soft father figures, the setting was so lush and I enjoyed the stark contrast between rural life and city life,but on the other hand the writing did absolutely nothing for me.

[Dawn Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read Around the World: Cape Verde

[Elisa]

Fantastic!! I was doing my assigned readings for uni and this is a hidden gem. I absolutely loved the writing style and got very invested in the character's lives. It is hard to get into the book at first, but once you do you can't let it go.

[Stacy Kinyanjui · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book feels all over the place with no clear overarching message. The author's writing feels like that of a person who knows their craft but the story itself is wanting. Honestly, I only read this because it was a book club pick. I don't think I would have naturally gravitated toward it.

[Kylie · Rating 4 out of 5]

read around the world: cabo verde! a great story about how women are perceived by men and the kindness of family you choose

[Miriam T. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Around the world challenge

I personally didn't enjoy this book so much, the story has potential but it feels like the story doesn't flow, its very confusing, always jumps from on thing to another.

[ElenaSquareEyes · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Madwoman of Serrano is a book that slowly grew on me and the last couple of chapters surprised me when there were some impactful moments there that I wasn’t expecting and actually made me realise how invested I was in some of these characters.

I think what I struggled to begin with with The Madwoman of Serrano was the narrative structure. It bounces between different characters points of view (not that confusing) and different time periods (what did throw me). To begin with there was no mention of Jerónimo and then when he does meet the mysterious woman, after that the time shifts from decades in the future where Filipa is an adult with her own teen daughter, to back when she’s five years old, to when she’s a teenager and back again. Tracking Filipa’s age is one of the only ways I could try and orientate myself. Especially once I realised what was happening because when it went from an adult-Filipa point of view chapter to a Jerónimo point of view I’d think they were in the same time period until there’s mentions of young-Filipa who appears to be mute, still living with Jerónimo in the village.

The village of Serrano are full of people who are not happy and seem to relish in the misfortune of others. They don’t like Filipa when she’s mute, the men of the village judge the women and the women can be mean towards anyone else they see as lesser than. The madwoman, a woman who is probably seen as mad as she’s independent and wise and perhaps a bit magical, lives at the edge of this society. She strikes up a friendship with young Filipa when no one but Jerónimo cares for her, which in turn does make Filipa more shunned as what sane child would spend time with a madwoman.

The Madwoman of Serrano does a good job of showing the toxicity of the small town (or in this case village) mentality, and how the patriarchy can harm the men as well as the women. Though the midwife of the village is the most important figure, men in the village see sex as their right and will beat any woman who refuses for whatever reason.

Some of the characters in the village are so horrible it’s a wonder that someone like Jerónimo manages to be so kind – though he’s not always kind, how he treats his wife is horrible but does feed into how the people of the village, the men especially, never talk about their emotions.

The Madwoman of Serrano is a strangely captivating book once I’d gotten my head around the time jumps. Slowly backstories are revealed and minor events mentioned in passing chapters before suddenly have meaning The Madwoman of Serrano is mostly a story about family, and the family you choose whether that’s friends or adoptive family. There’s also the idea of fate having a hand in characters lives, and there’s the odd unexplainable moment that can only be put down to magic.

[Annamari Laaksonen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dina is the first female author to have a book published in Cabo Verde and also the first to be translated into English. She has worked as a teacher, social assistant and journalist in several Portuguese speaking countries. The story is about an isolated village and its people – the village goes for centuries without a name and then, due to specific circumstances, is dubbed Serrano. The people are peculiar and the ways of the village are quirky – there is a midwife who does not only deliver babies but initiates the village’s young men into life’s carnal pleasures (part of the job), a madwoman who incarnates every 33 years, a young woman without a memory who falls from the sky and a young mechanic who falls in love with her and a daughter of the village removed as a child now living a dull life in the city. The book belongs to the magical realism genre which makes it simultaneously fascinating and also somewhat difficult to follow, with some funny and quirky imaginaries, but overall not a cohesive enough narrative. Don’t get me wrong, it is a nice read with interesting plot lines that do not quite come together, but there is something funny and energetic about the book, some character arcs are just more interesting while others drag and feel as if they were written in a rush. It is like a curvy, bumpy road – sometimes fun, sometimes nauseating but never solid.

I read this book as part of our Virtual Nomad quest to explore and experience food, literature and cinema from different countries. www.myvirtualnomad.com

[Wathingira Gituro · Rating 5 out of 5]

🇨🇻🇨🇻🇨🇻🇨🇻🌟 (4.5 flags/stars)! The Madwoman of Serrano is a magical, lovely tale! I can't do justice trying to explain it so I'll quote the author... "it is a story, then, like many others, of an unknown time and place, of everywhere and of always, a story in which women and men are crushed by too much beauty or, commonly too much cruelty."

Serrano is a curious place, with its own odd characters and quirky customs that make the madwoman look not so mad, after all. It is also a place whose existence is predicated on a deceit, and secrets that it ultimately is forced to face. In many ways Serrano becomes a character in the story and one gets attached to it as one would a protagonist.

This is an amazing book! I rarely finish books in 1 sitting - mostly because I'm a painfully slow reader and because at some point my eyes start to ache and I can't concentrate. But this book, I consumed (more like inhaled) over a 13 hour span. And the last 4 chapters had me rapt with my heart beating at 1.30am! 😂

This is one of the most curiously written and interesting books I have read. It's narrative style will in some places leave your head spinning trying to figure out where exactly in time you are. And it's time jumping is not clunky at all flowing smoothly so much so that you at some point just stop trying to figure it out and just go with the flow.

After 2 false starts, both of which were when my slump was at its worst, I'm glad I picked this up, you should too!!

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made it onto my reading list because it's about the only book from Cape Verde I have access to, which helps achieve my loose goal of reading a book from every country, so I didn't have much for expectations. In fact, the title builds intrigue for limitless drama and suffering, revelries that make me no better than the men of Serrano, which is bound to lead to disappointment unless the book is really, really good. Well, the book is really, really good. Not only does it deliver the juicy details of the town's inhabitants, but it weaves a handful of themes very creatively. Themes including the uncertainty and fragmentations of one's own thoughts, the pitfalls of male ego, and not at all charming simplicity of country folk (it's great to see the tropes of simple country folk being wise, kind, thoroughly good people get revealed as, oftentimes, hollow, and it's especially gratifying to see as someone who has lived in the country and knows that those tropes are nothing more than pandering to get simple people to hand over their money... but I digress).

All in all, this was better than a lot of books I've read that have tens of thousands more readers on this site (I'm the 14th person to list it as read, what a hipster accomplishment!)

[Tutankhamun18 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic novel. It follows Jeronimo, Maninha, Fernanda and Filipa as their lives are shaped by each other and the village of Serrano. It is beautifully written and translated, explores rural vs. urban, love, family, curse/traditional vs. exploitation of land and people, success, reproduction, men vs. women, sex, sanity vs. insanity andintelligence and emotional awareness. It started off reading like a collection of interlinked short stories, as we got introduced to all the characters and then it all came together into a great story. There was ome plot point with Fernanda that was really brilliant, but I would have liked it to have been given a bit more depth as it was so good and was almost glossed over. It also tells the story of the death of a village, as it becomes exploited by a mining company. The descriptions of the villagers is done very well and this is cause for humorous elements throughout the novel. The contrast between rural and city is done so well; rural feels like you are reading in the past and then when you get to city parts it feels more modern and recent. This highlights the contrast between the two incredibly well.

“If questions did pursue him, he beat them away, often so forcefullt that anyone overhearing him would have thought he was perfoeming an exorcism.”

“Filipa knew she didnt have very deep feelings and wondered whether it was because shed been born and raised in Serrano a place where people where miserly with their affections and devoi of dreams.”

“In the end, Garcia has been a temporary reaident in her life. She was just grateful he hadn’t taken more of her with him when he left.”

“What could dearh gain by taking someone so unfledhed, so lacking in age and experience, a life so un-lived, with nothing to confess and no sins to atone for?”

“His sins were nothing special, yet he paid for them
by working himself to the bone everyday.”

[Taylor Heideman · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It is a story, then, like many others, of an unknown time and place, of everywhere and of always, a story in which women and men are crushed by too much beauty or, more commonly, too much cruelty."

The Madwoman of Serrano feels like a fairytale still grounded in reality. The magic or curse that exists in the village continues to affect its residents, even when they leave, and even when Serrano is destroyed. Maybe a better way to put it is the storytelling feels like an African & Portuguese twist on magical realism.
But the essential issues, as in all good fiction, still feel supremely real: the desire for motherhood, the fear & hatred of outsiders, the stagnancy of tradition & the desire to break away from that tradition, and the ache of knowing who & where you came from.

The hazy film of the stories is consistently pierced through by touching and/or heart-rending statements like this one: "She lived her life in a whirlwind, the better to distract herself, but the chaos also prevented her from ever truly knowing herself and those around her. Her own life sometimes seemed so remote to her that she had the impression she must be getting very old." And that's just in chapter 2.

I think this is a book that deserves a re-read; occasionally the magical elements got in the way of the emotional heart of the story, but the emotional stakes easily carry you through to the end.

This is the first translated (to English) book written by a Cabo Verdean woman; I'm so thankful to have found it, read it, and really liked it.

Global Reading Project: Cabo Verde. 9/200

[Sophie Heighway · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a beautifully written book. Unusual narrative, however this writting style perfectly paints a picture of Serrano and its people, far better than any logical description would have done. So focused on individuals thoughts rather than their actions, this made for a nice change in pace.

This book tells the story of several individuals, all a very diverse group with very different roles, from fathers, mothers, daughters, city dwellers and rural folk, foster families, unusual priests, 'mad women' and midwives. About halfway through the book you begin to see how the lives of all these people link together, lives intertwining.

I really enjoy the literary technique Dina used to make big revelations quickly and subtlety with very little fuss, so you'd be left chewing the idea over in your head long after you'd put the book down for a break, replaying the story over in your mind to figure out the enormity of the last scene.

There were some bits that were slightly repetitive, ideas and thoughts the characters had or descriptions of the village/city, that could have done with a bit better editing. And there were some parts of the story that really could have been expanded (Fernanda/Geneveva). However that maybe would have taken the plot away from Serrano and its people, as the story at its core isn't plot based, more a canvas to paint a place and different types of people as they change /don't change over time.

Beautful book, unusual people, even more unusual place.

[Johan D'Haenen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Serrano ligt op de grens tussen stad en woud, de grens tussen toekomst en verleden... het ligt ook tussen berg en vallei, de twee tegengestelden die met elkaar verzoend moeten worden.
Serrano heeft de wijsheid, de oude wijsheid van de traditie... maar Serrano heeft ook de dwaasheid, de oude dwaasheid van diezelfde traditie waar de vrouwen enerzijds gehaat worden door de mannen, maar anderzijds beschouwd worden als een noodzakelijk kwaad... een traditie die vreemdelingen verfoeit waardoor inteelt de enige voortplantingsmogelijkheid is voor het dorp... dat is Serrano...
"the source of the villagers’ humiliation was that they had been given bodies but no brains."
Het verhaal leest als een sprookje, een magische vertelling in poëtische bewoordingen, wat het eerlijk gezegd niet altijd gemakkelijk om volgen maakt...
En jammer genoeg zakt het geleidelijk aan helemaal in elkaar. Het verhaal verliest kracht, verzandt in oninteressante bespiegelingen en banale verwikkelingen... Het is alsof de auteur alle betoverende inspiratie van het begin opgebruikt heeft en niet verder meer komt dan een relaas van alledaagse dorpsperikelen.
Jammer, zeer jammer.

[Molly Ison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe a translation problem, but this reads like a description of a book rather than the book itself. Potential mysteries end up having a dull explanation. We're assured that the problems of the village stem from misogyny but it's the bitchiness of the female side characters that gets described in great detail while some really fucked up behavior from a man gets handwaved away because the woman he did it to was a horrible person. All this could be contextualized as a look at human imperfections, where even the person who most loved the protagonist made some terrible mistakes, but if that was the intent, the execution didn't land. Worst of all, the main character is a charisma sink to the point it became hard to keep reading and the eponymous character makes no narrative sense at all.

I didn't mean this to be a pile on. There are the bones of a good story here, but it could have used several more rounds of development and editing.

[Octavia Cade · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been wanting to read this for ages, and I'm so glad I finally did. It has that appealing sense of the accepted fantastical that a lot of magical realism does, and the story of a remote village and its constantly reincarnating madwoman, its powerful midwife, and its magical spring isn't really background to the central relationship between a father and his adopted daughter. It's more that that relationship periodically surfaces amidst the ongoing worldbuilding of the village, and I don't know why I find magical realist worldbuilding so much more tolerable than the type of worldbuilding often found in other fantasy stories. Perhaps it just smacks a little less of the encyclopaedia.

Anyway, this was a delight from beginning to end. It was, I believe, the first novel from Cape Verde translated into English, and I hope there's more from the author that I can read because I enjoyed every minute of it.

[Avani Ghosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a wild ride lmao

As one could probably surmise, this book is about a mad woman in Serrano (a remote village in Cape Verde) who just says things AND THEN another woman just drops from the sky into the village and falls in love with some guy and they have a kid AND THEN SHE LEAVES and the guy is just left to raise his kind AND THEN the kid is taken away from the village under mysterious circumstances ?!?! And then when the kid is older she starts having visions of the mad woman and all of her predictions come true and it’s like a “oh can we save the village and can we reunite with dad” kind of vibe.

I do like the overall vibes of the story but certain parts felt very rushed and you could tell the author didn’t care about certain parts of the story and wanted to get to other parts which is real lmao 6/10

[camilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

serrano reminds me so much of the city i was born in and live up until now, so this book spoke to me. there is this urban legend that a priest plagued this city so it would never grow, so that people living here would always feel miserable and lost. and, looking at it, i believe this story.

there are so many mountains that need to be moved until something gets to change in our lives, but when it does, it's worth it. i really liked this book, the idea of the madwoman and all the things that happened here. a great mix of real life and magical realism. very interesting!

[Lins Fons · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first novel by a female author to be published in Cape Verde and to be translated in English! That is quite the achievement.
The writingstyle is poetic, whoever I do think that I want to read it again in Portuguese because I think some of the magic is lost in translation. I do think there were too many characters and that is why I didn't really feel a connection with most of them. But the last 7 or so chapters, where the book focusses more on a few of them, drew me back in.

[Karen Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chosen for the "Read Around the World" challenge: CABO VERDE. It took me a while to get into this book, but I adored lines such as: "The man's death certificate said he'd died after being poisoned by strange thoughts." It's a strange tale of magic realism, a remote village, and love of all kinds. The author ties it together satisfyingly in the end - which makes even more sense when reading some of the beginning again (has foreshadowing that I missed at first).

[Serena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read The Ultimate Tragedy just before this, interestingly by the same translator - and was impressed both times, and by Jethro Soutar's portfolio of work.

[Africa BookChallenge]

The latest entry for The Africa Book Challenge, The Madwoman of Serrano by Dina Salústio is now available.

Click on the URL on the profile page to learn more about the first novel translated into English by an author from Cabo Verde.

[Guchu · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5

I regret to have taken so long on this one, I'd have enjoyed it a lot more otherwise [I think], but it's an enjoyable strange story peppered with a bit of magical realism/fantasy(?) (can never tell the difference).

[Aleksandar · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know what my trend is lately, but almost every book I read starts out nice and breezy, with great writing, then goes to shit. Needless to say, it's happened her as well. By the last few chapters, the characters and the whole story becomes way too messy for comprehension.

[Julia P · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the description, I thought this was going to be a book of the past. However, it's actually a more modern story with a girl, Filipa, learning about her past/family tree. It was a really sweet book.

[Katie (kt-recs) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one snuck right up on me!!