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Saudade
A Goan immigrant family caught between their complicity in Portuguese rule and their own outsider status in Angola pre-independence.
1960s Angola. A Goan immigrant family finds itself caught between their complicity in Portuguese rule and their own outsider status in the period leading up to independence. Looking back on her childhood, the narrator of Suneeta Peres da Costa’s novel captures with intense lyricism the difficult relationship between her and her mother, and the ways in which their intimate world is shaken by domestic violence, the legacies of slavery, and the end of empire. Her story unfolds into a growing awareness of the lies of colonialism and the political ruptures that ultimately lead to their exile.
1960s Angola. A Goan immigrant family finds itself caught between their complicity in Portuguese rule and their own outsider status in the period leading up to independence. Looking back on her childhood, the narrator of Suneeta Peres da Costa’s novel captures with intense lyricism the difficult relationship between her and her mother, and the ways in which their intimate world is shaken by domestic violence, the legacies of slavery, and the end of empire. Her story unfolds into a growing awareness of the lies of colonialism and the political ruptures that ultimately lead to their exile.
120 pages, Paperback
First published March 15, 2018
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March 9, 2020
Saudade
is a bittersweet longing for that which is lost. A Portuguese word often claimed to be untranslatable, it is a melancholic yearning; an affectionate nostalgia; the ‘presence of an absence’.
Suneeta Peres da Costa expands the concept of saudade to encompass the dislocation and loss felt by diasporas. Set during the twilight of the Portuguese Empire in the 1960s and 70s, amidst the Angolan independence movement and civil war, this coming-of-age story about a young Goan girl is told with simple elegance.
This is a very slight book. My library copy ran to 114 pages, but it was also a small format – shorter and squarer than a typical paperback – so the ‘real’ page count would be even less. Of course, it’s possible to tell a powerful & punchy story in very few pages, but here I felt a mismatch between the low page count and the sweeping narrative. It felt underdeveloped, or perhaps even like an abridgment, and I was left wanting a lot more.
What we do get is rich, evocative and full of fascinating history. If it hadn’t been over almost before it began, this would probably have been 5 stars.
Suneeta Peres da Costa expands the concept of saudade to encompass the dislocation and loss felt by diasporas. Set during the twilight of the Portuguese Empire in the 1960s and 70s, amidst the Angolan independence movement and civil war, this coming-of-age story about a young Goan girl is told with simple elegance.
This is a very slight book. My library copy ran to 114 pages, but it was also a small format – shorter and squarer than a typical paperback – so the ‘real’ page count would be even less. Of course, it’s possible to tell a powerful & punchy story in very few pages, but here I felt a mismatch between the low page count and the sweeping narrative. It felt underdeveloped, or perhaps even like an abridgment, and I was left wanting a lot more.
What we do get is rich, evocative and full of fascinating history. If it hadn’t been over almost before it began, this would probably have been 5 stars.
March 9, 2020
The definition of the word “saudade” is a feeling of longing, melancholy, or nostalgia that is characteristic of the Portuguese or Brazilian temperament, or “the love that remains” after someone is gone. It’s the recollection of feelings, experiences, places or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, wellbeing, which now triggers the senses and makes one live again.
I don’t think I have ever come across such an apt title. This novel takes place in Angola in the 1960s when it is still under Portuguese control. The young narrator, Maria-Cristina is living in Angola, but her parents were born in Goa, so she has felt displaced, an outsider all her young life. She pines, yearns for a homeland she has never seen.
Because of her parent’s heritage, they were a sort of aristocratic class in Goa tied with the Portuguese, when Angola becomes independent and throws off Portuguese hegemony, Maria-Cristina must leave or be exiled.
The feeling of saudade is not just experienced by Maria, her boyfriend who comes from Portugal, longs to return. Her mother, lives in the past, missing Goa. That is why I said the title is so apt. It’s brilliant. Throughout this whole short novel, all the characters are experiencing the sense of saudade. Very clever.
What also makes this even more interesting is that we experience the whole story through the eyes of a growing child. As Maria grows older, she starts to realise the predicament her family is in as the inevitability of Angola’s independence looms.
That brings me to the characters, and they are well written as well. Especially Maria and the mother who take the lion’s share of the workload.
You could not call this a happy novel, in fact a feeling of melancholy pervades pretty much every page, but it is beautifully written. The prose is at times poetic.
Suneeta Peres Da Costa has packed so much into this wonderful little novel. At first, I found myself wishing it was a little longer, but on a second reading I think she has got it spot on.
The way everything ties in with the title, the narrative and the interesting time period in which it takes place, the beautiful writing, they all come together to form a terrific little novel. 4 Stars!
If you are interested in learning a little more about Suneeta Peres Da Costa there is a great article/interview here - https://www.collinsbookblog.com/post/...
I don’t think I have ever come across such an apt title. This novel takes place in Angola in the 1960s when it is still under Portuguese control. The young narrator, Maria-Cristina is living in Angola, but her parents were born in Goa, so she has felt displaced, an outsider all her young life. She pines, yearns for a homeland she has never seen.
Because of her parent’s heritage, they were a sort of aristocratic class in Goa tied with the Portuguese, when Angola becomes independent and throws off Portuguese hegemony, Maria-Cristina must leave or be exiled.
The feeling of saudade is not just experienced by Maria, her boyfriend who comes from Portugal, longs to return. Her mother, lives in the past, missing Goa. That is why I said the title is so apt. It’s brilliant. Throughout this whole short novel, all the characters are experiencing the sense of saudade. Very clever.
What also makes this even more interesting is that we experience the whole story through the eyes of a growing child. As Maria grows older, she starts to realise the predicament her family is in as the inevitability of Angola’s independence looms.
That brings me to the characters, and they are well written as well. Especially Maria and the mother who take the lion’s share of the workload.
You could not call this a happy novel, in fact a feeling of melancholy pervades pretty much every page, but it is beautifully written. The prose is at times poetic.
Suneeta Peres Da Costa has packed so much into this wonderful little novel. At first, I found myself wishing it was a little longer, but on a second reading I think she has got it spot on.
The way everything ties in with the title, the narrative and the interesting time period in which it takes place, the beautiful writing, they all come together to form a terrific little novel. 4 Stars!
If you are interested in learning a little more about Suneeta Peres Da Costa there is a great article/interview here - https://www.collinsbookblog.com/post/...
February 7, 2020
Saudade is a feeling of loss, or not belonging, and this is well captured by the narrator of this novella, which is on the Tournament of Books shortlist. It is set in 1960s pre-independence Angola, and the narrator and her family are Goan, although she has never lived anywhere but Africa. They are being pushed out even as they cling to the power that comes from being the self-imposed merchant middle class. This is well written and a quick read, but I do get tired of books written from the perspective of the people bemoaning a loss of privilege and power that they should never have taken in the first place. The narrator grapples with it but as a child/teen clearly doesn't understand what the reader might, and this could be a disservice. I'm not sure. Maybe a longer work would have had more opportunity to discuss these themes.
January 16, 2020
An interesting and short read, but not one that grabbed me and wouldn't let go. I enjoyed some of the prose and learning a bit of history. There were some memorable passages as we go through the internal changes taking place as the narrator evolves from a young child to a young woman, seeing her perspective and understanding change with experiences. The story catalogs how our view of our parents, in particular, goes through a metamorphosis:
"I came to see how the past, like some ancient karma, inscribes itself on the body as much as the mind, so that what we do to others returns to haunt us in the subtlest manner. Although his body was not broken by the weight of a felled plane tree, or deafened by a harvester, Papa was in his own way sickened by so many secrets he was keeping, we were increasingly hostage to his moods, to his silences and sudden outbursts, his sudden demonstrations of affection and withdrawal."
We all experience this kind of awakening, and this author captures that reasonably well--both within the family dynamics and within the larger social culture. I think my failure to resonate more strongly with the story was due to what felt like a surface brush stroke of a story, rather than one which dug more deeply.
"I came to see how the past, like some ancient karma, inscribes itself on the body as much as the mind, so that what we do to others returns to haunt us in the subtlest manner. Although his body was not broken by the weight of a felled plane tree, or deafened by a harvester, Papa was in his own way sickened by so many secrets he was keeping, we were increasingly hostage to his moods, to his silences and sudden outbursts, his sudden demonstrations of affection and withdrawal."
We all experience this kind of awakening, and this author captures that reasonably well--both within the family dynamics and within the larger social culture. I think my failure to resonate more strongly with the story was due to what felt like a surface brush stroke of a story, rather than one which dug more deeply.
January 9, 2020
This short coming-of-age story had an intriguing premise and setting but ultimately left me wanting it to have a little more heft. The narrator is a young woman whose family has immigrated from the Goa region of India to Angola during the time it was a Portuguese colony. As the narrator grows up, so does Angola seek to shake off the chains of colonialism. As the Portuguese rule falls apart, so does the narrator’s family. Excellent writing, but I would have liked to see more of the strife and everyday life in Angola at this time, though. 3.5⭐️
February 11, 2020
A super short book (just over 100 pages) but I took five days to read it. I wanted to keep it slow and savor this wonderfully written look at a girlhood and adolescence in 1960-70s Angola on the verge of revolution. The narrator (never named I think) is born in Angola but her parents are ethnically Indian and immigrated from another former Portuguese colony, Goa. The title of the book is one of those untranslatable words, like Schadenfreude. Its meaning is something like melancholic longing which really suits the tone of this novella. The question is what is the narrator longing for? There are lots of interesting answers to that question to ponder.
March 2, 2020
This is a short (114 page) novella. Despite it’s short length I had trouble focusing my attention. But I am celebrating because with this book, for the first time I have read the entire Tournament of Books shortlist….I am a “completist”. Yay!
Saudade is a young girl growing up in Angola. She and her family are immigrants from Goa at a time when Angola was under Portugese rule. Africa/India/Portugal…very confusing. I’ll admit my ignorance of the geography and history of the region had a lot to do with my not finding it very interesting. The book starts when Saudade is 3 or 4 years old but the entire book is narrated as if she is an adult. The level of sophistication of her memories is not believable. I felt this book was the weakest of the tournament.
Saudade is a young girl growing up in Angola. She and her family are immigrants from Goa at a time when Angola was under Portugese rule. Africa/India/Portugal…very confusing. I’ll admit my ignorance of the geography and history of the region had a lot to do with my not finding it very interesting. The book starts when Saudade is 3 or 4 years old but the entire book is narrated as if she is an adult. The level of sophistication of her memories is not believable. I felt this book was the weakest of the tournament.
March 5, 2020
An exceedingly slim coming-of-age novel with nice writing and setting but too little story and depth to keep me engaged.
January 5, 2020
52 Weeks of Women of Color, Tournament of Books 2020
"Love is a fire that burns unseen, a wound that aches yet isn't felt . . . a longing for nothing but to long, a lonlieness in the midst of people, a never feeling pleased when pleased, a passion that gains when lost in thought" _ Camoes
Saudade is a feeling of melancholy brought on by the sense of absence and a longing to return to what was lost and can never be regained.
This sense of yearning ripples throughout this novella as a young Goan emigre struggles to find her self and her place during the Angolan Civil War. A daughter of Portuguese sympathizers she comes to realize that their existence, albeit of a privileged class, is that of outsiders. Yet they no more belong in Goa than they do in Angola. She does not recall her ancestral home and her parents cannot fathom how to return to a "life they have forgotten". Peres da Costa eloquently captures this feeling of displacement across characters and experiences. Saudade is applied not only to the immigrant experience but to intimacy and coming of age.
January 29, 2020
3.5, rounded up.
I’m clearly like Goldilocks. I’m always complaining that books are too bloated and need a firm editor, and now for this slender novella, I’m going to carp that it was too short!
Saudade is a tantalizing glimpse into a world I really knew nothing about - the 20th century liberation of the last pieces of the Portuguese empire, and the complex racial and social dynamics that that empire (and its dissolution) created.
Our heroine is a Portuguese speaking Catholic Goan raised in Angola, where her family socializes with the white ruling class, provided that they do not seem “too” Indian (as her father scolds her mother when she tries to wear a sari to a social function). The customs, food and characters mentioned remind you of other imperial remnants (Mozambique, the Azores, São Tomé and, no longer a colony, Brazil). For all the literature I’ve read about the British empire, and even about French Indochina, this book was literally first of a kind for me. I kept Google close at hand, as many words, especially foods, are not translated and unfamiliar place names abound.
Our heroine grows from 3 years old to rebellious teenager in a scant 100 pages. But Saudade is good enough, the prose compelling enough, and the characters (many of whom, such as the African and mestizo household servants, are only briefly glanced) intriguing enough that I’d happily read a book twice that length by this author.
I’m clearly like Goldilocks. I’m always complaining that books are too bloated and need a firm editor, and now for this slender novella, I’m going to carp that it was too short!
Saudade is a tantalizing glimpse into a world I really knew nothing about - the 20th century liberation of the last pieces of the Portuguese empire, and the complex racial and social dynamics that that empire (and its dissolution) created.
Our heroine is a Portuguese speaking Catholic Goan raised in Angola, where her family socializes with the white ruling class, provided that they do not seem “too” Indian (as her father scolds her mother when she tries to wear a sari to a social function). The customs, food and characters mentioned remind you of other imperial remnants (Mozambique, the Azores, São Tomé and, no longer a colony, Brazil). For all the literature I’ve read about the British empire, and even about French Indochina, this book was literally first of a kind for me. I kept Google close at hand, as many words, especially foods, are not translated and unfamiliar place names abound.
Our heroine grows from 3 years old to rebellious teenager in a scant 100 pages. But Saudade is good enough, the prose compelling enough, and the characters (many of whom, such as the African and mestizo household servants, are only briefly glanced) intriguing enough that I’d happily read a book twice that length by this author.
February 13, 2020
I could not picture myself leaving and starting my sentences on a maudlin note, with a heavy-hearted intonation and the phrase, 'during my time in Africa.'
An Indian girl grows up in 1960s Angola, as the Angolans begin their fight for independence from Portugal. As a child, she is unaware of the unrest stirring around her and in the novella her main focus is her fraught relationship with her mother and her experiences with schoolfriends and her first relationship. What sets this apart from an ordinary coming-of-age story is the way Suneeta Peres da Costa weaves the usual experiences of childhood in with the daily life of colonial Angola. It's a small glimpse into a long gone way of life, and successful as that.
An Indian girl grows up in 1960s Angola, as the Angolans begin their fight for independence from Portugal. As a child, she is unaware of the unrest stirring around her and in the novella her main focus is her fraught relationship with her mother and her experiences with schoolfriends and her first relationship. What sets this apart from an ordinary coming-of-age story is the way Suneeta Peres da Costa weaves the usual experiences of childhood in with the daily life of colonial Angola. It's a small glimpse into a long gone way of life, and successful as that.
December 23, 2019
Well, this book -- the first of my new reads for the 2020 Tournament of Books (ToB) (have eight other entrants already under my belt, which I am pretty sure is a personal record going into ToB) -- certainly exposed my lack of knowledge of world history! So, while I knew there was British rule over India in the past, I did not know there was Portuguese rule in a region named Goa and the Portuguese also ruled Angola until several conflicts lead to them gaining independence in the 1970s. Put that all together and we have this novel(la) of Goan immigrants in Angola in the years leading up to independence... and just to make it even more global, written by an Australian born author of Goan ancestry, whew!
So while this novel is indeed historical fiction, I would hardly classify it as such (all the above was quickly wikipedia'd and googled) but more a fleeting coming-of-age story of a young girl born in Angola, but to Goan parents ahead of those troubled times.
The title is a Portuguese word that intangibly means "the presence of absence" or a melancholic longing, if that helps any! It's good and Peres Da Costa captures this essence, but the work is so brief (120 pages, tho other editions have it as low as 70) that it just a glimpse into that moment in history and this fascinating mix of cultures and countries.
I'm glad I read it (plus being a super quick read to add one more book completed this year) as it was most certainly a book that was not on my reading radar at all prior to ToB. But honestly, I am not sure what to make of story - it was kind of there, but then gone and just wished was left with more than a pleasant story and a new awareness of Goa and Angola. But alas, perhaps what I am feeling is "saudade"! And if that was indeed the intent... well-played!
So while this novel is indeed historical fiction, I would hardly classify it as such (all the above was quickly wikipedia'd and googled) but more a fleeting coming-of-age story of a young girl born in Angola, but to Goan parents ahead of those troubled times.
The title is a Portuguese word that intangibly means "the presence of absence" or a melancholic longing, if that helps any! It's good and Peres Da Costa captures this essence, but the work is so brief (120 pages, tho other editions have it as low as 70) that it just a glimpse into that moment in history and this fascinating mix of cultures and countries.
I'm glad I read it (plus being a super quick read to add one more book completed this year) as it was most certainly a book that was not on my reading radar at all prior to ToB. But honestly, I am not sure what to make of story - it was kind of there, but then gone and just wished was left with more than a pleasant story and a new awareness of Goa and Angola. But alas, perhaps what I am feeling is "saudade"! And if that was indeed the intent... well-played!
March 10, 2020
A lyric novel with a deft touch, seen through the eyes of a girl coming of age in a revolution. The sentences were intense and poetic, and the images dramatic. Deceptively slight in size, this made me curious for a time and country I didn't know anything about.
February 13, 2020
I don't have the background knowledge to understand and appreciate this book enough to do it justice. It takes place in Angola and the main character's parents are from Goa. I can follow that there's important points/themes about home, family, colonization, and politics - and I think if I had a more solid understanding of Angola in the 1960s I would have understood these themes and their impact.
Even with my shortcomings, though, the narrator's relationship with her mom, friend, and boyfriend and her growing understanding of the world around her and her place in it were portrayed wonderfully. They remind me of Ferrante because they are uncompromising in their portrayal of the bad and gritty along with the pleasing.
Even with my shortcomings, though, the narrator's relationship with her mom, friend, and boyfriend and her growing understanding of the world around her and her place in it were portrayed wonderfully. They remind me of Ferrante because they are uncompromising in their portrayal of the bad and gritty along with the pleasing.
December 18, 2019
Yeah, this book was okay. I was really into the first half of the book, really settled in, and then my interest just tapered off. It was an interesting series of anecdotes, an interesting coming-of-age story but it wasn't too memorable for me.
September 27, 2019
A beautifully written coming of age story set in 1960's Angola.
March 9, 2020
Not a bad book, but not particularly memorable either. I don’t mind short books, especially after I have read several long ones, but this one didn’t feel up to the world it created. The end was very rushed, and could have accommodated a considerably longer novel. Or, in other words, just when it started to get interesting, it was over. (This is also why I am not a huge short story fan.) I don’t think this will go far in the Tournament of Books, but we will have to see.
February 15, 2020
Briefly showing glimpses of a young girl's coming-of-age in Africa white her family is from India. There are many details here, despite being a novella, but to me they aren't the details that could be relevant to a family of colonizers who are living in Angola, Africa that are originally from Goa, India. The main character Maria-Cristina is a little naive, so if anything, the narrative kind of steps around the colonizing and the colonized. For example, the main character mentioning a gift the servant gives her, as it relates to her, but not mentioning much about the servant's life. But I understand this book isn't supposed to be about that. This is the main character's story. Possibly the writer didn't feel comfortable writing about the colonized. Instead, the book is like a fictional account of the experience of the writer's aunt who lived in Angola shortly before the Independence. But really, there are hardly any glimpses towards the colonizers or the colonized people of Angola. So without either perspective, it's hard to see this as a distinctive book as so many details remain out of the narrative. With "own voices" is it better to write from the perspective of the "victors" to further erase the colonized? Or is empathy more important? To be honest, I don't know enough about the history of Angola, so there were many gaps of knowledge and explanations that were missing to me. This isn't a history book --but it seems like too much history went unsaid. However, it's a short and sweet book to spend some time with Maria-Cristina.
March 9, 2020
I thought Saudade matched its name in feeling but that was most of what I gleaned. Some longing/resentment about being born female, realizations that your parents and those who 'love' you neither know everything nor keep you from harm (and often cause the harm themselves), and general leaving the nest musings. I learned a lot about history and people migrations within an empire I didn't realize was still relevant but I learned most of those through googling (which is fine, I didn't expect the author to educate me). Overall though, it just felt more a fragment of a story than something complete.
October 21, 2019
This novella explores the sense of loss of homeland through a very specific, stream-of-consciousness story. The book provokes more explorations than it resolves - which is a compliment - engaging with the idea of homesickness/melancholy/home in a fractured colonial world. The lens around the narrator was a little closer than perhaps I wanted - knowing little about the Goan diaspora going in, but it creates an effective coming of age tale.
January 2, 2020
Really liked this one. Prose was perfect: lyrical genus tenue that never said to much but set out very much to be seen that was unsaid. And showed the dizzying complex layers if colonial history and family history through one set of moments in one girl's growing up. There were only few places where the narrator ascribed a wider perspective to her child self than seemed plausible with the rest of the portrayal. But otherwise perfect.
January 27, 2020
I went into this with a shameful lack of knowledge of Portuguese imperialism in both Goa and Angola, nor had I are read anything that took place in Angola. This book told in a series of short, stream of consciousness vignettes we learn about our young narrator's life, her family, and her feelings of Saudade - a melancholy for that which cannot be regained. It was an easy read, but ultimately I would have preferred a little more depth.
February 10, 2020
Coming of age stories are not my favourite form, but this spare novella in which the young narrator, the daughter of Goan immigrants, traces her passage from innocent child to young woman in Angola in the years before the outbreak of civil war, is told with just the right tone and touch.
Longer review here: https://roughghosts.com/2020/02/10/a-...
Longer review here: https://roughghosts.com/2020/02/10/a-...
January 6, 2020
I loved this short but lush book that takes place in Angola. This is the coming of age story of Maria during a time of civil war and unrest. It’s a story of growing up, of being from an immigrant family, and of watching your world collapse. And it’s all told in beautiful language. #tob2020
November 28, 2020
ToB 2020! Indian diaspora, Portuguese colonialism, set in Africa. Definitely a new voice for me! It did seem that a lot of mundane things happened for 90% of the book then things got quite interesting. Reading about the quarantine was certainly timely...
January 27, 2020
thoughts coming shortly
February 12, 2020
Beautiful story and such an interesting method of writing.
February 18, 2020
3.5 stars.
September 16, 2020
What is Saudade?
(from Wikipedia)
In fact I was curious about Hiraeth (in Welsh) and could not find any resources about it. Then I arrived at Saudade and read this novella. I admit that it was captivating; was there something in the tone or something about the narration, I don't know. This book and the story seemed some kind of eye candy to me. Next I am going to read The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa, in search of a better understanding of Saudade.
If you want to read a touching and fairly short story with a theme containing nostalgia, longing, regret and melancholy, this might be a good book.
Saudade is a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one cares for and/or loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never be had again. It is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places, or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, and well-being, which now trigger the senses and make one experience the pain of separation from those joyous sensations. However it acknowledges that to long for the past would detract from the excitement you feel towards the future. Saudade describes both happy and sad at the same time, which is most closely translated to the English saying ‘bitter sweet’
(from Wikipedia)
In fact I was curious about Hiraeth (in Welsh) and could not find any resources about it. Then I arrived at Saudade and read this novella. I admit that it was captivating; was there something in the tone or something about the narration, I don't know. This book and the story seemed some kind of eye candy to me. Next I am going to read The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa, in search of a better understanding of Saudade.
If you want to read a touching and fairly short story with a theme containing nostalgia, longing, regret and melancholy, this might be a good book.
April 5, 2020
There are some seriously beautiful passages and sections of prose in this book. And Saudade is one of my favorite words ((that I’ve heard of anyway!)) Notoriously difficult to translate into English, it describes a feeling of melancholy remembrance; yearning for something that’s gone and perhaps never was. Gorgeous.
My biggest problem with this book is that it feels unfinished. It’s a short novella, and I find we are left as soon as the most compelling pieces of the story are coming into focus. It’s essentially a coming of age narrative. The narrator is a Goan girl who is born into a family of privilege, her father working for government of Portugal, in the midst of brewing revolution in Angola. She has a number of insights into the mind of someone who feels between worlds. She identifies more with the uprising than the privilege into which she’s born. She longs for something she does not have and is not sure she really wants.
But just as she reaches adulthood, and crisis bubbles up, she moves from the home she’s sworn never to leave, and finds herself detained, the story becomes difficult to follow. Is she sent home? Does she choose to? What is next? (It’s been a few months since I read, but still... Those last few moments pass so quickly I’m left wondering what’s going on)
The story ends. I want to read the next 200 pages, but there are none. I
My biggest problem with this book is that it feels unfinished. It’s a short novella, and I find we are left as soon as the most compelling pieces of the story are coming into focus. It’s essentially a coming of age narrative. The narrator is a Goan girl who is born into a family of privilege, her father working for government of Portugal, in the midst of brewing revolution in Angola. She has a number of insights into the mind of someone who feels between worlds. She identifies more with the uprising than the privilege into which she’s born. She longs for something she does not have and is not sure she really wants.
But just as she reaches adulthood, and crisis bubbles up, she moves from the home she’s sworn never to leave, and finds herself detained, the story becomes difficult to follow. Is she sent home? Does she choose to? What is next? (It’s been a few months since I read, but still... Those last few moments pass so quickly I’m left wondering what’s going on)
The story ends. I want to read the next 200 pages, but there are none. I
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