The Drinker of Horizons
A Novel
-
-
4.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
Longlisted for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award
The scintillating conclusion to the critically acclaimed historical saga: the Jan Michalski Prize–winning Sands of the Emperor trilogy.
“[Couto’s] life has been woven into the history of the nation, and he has become the foremost chronicler of Mozambique’s antiheroes: its women, its peasants, even its dead.” —Jacob Judah, The New York Times
In The Drinker of Horizons, the award-winning author Mia Couto brings the epic love story between a young Mozambican woman named Imani and the Portuguese sergeant Germano de Melo to its moving close. We resume where The Sword and the Spear concluded: While Germano is left behind in Africa, serving with the Portuguese military, Imani has been enlisted to act as the interpreter to the imprisoned emperor of Gaza, Ngungunyane, on the long voyage to Lisbon. For the emperor and his seven wives, it will be a journey of no return. Imani’s own return will come only after a decade-long odyssey through the Portuguese empire at the beginning of the twentieth century.
If history is always narrated by the victors, in The Drinker of Horizons, Couto performs an act of restorative justice, giving a voice to those silenced by the horrors of colonialism. Throughout, Couto’s language astonishes, rendering with utter clarity the beauty and terror of war and love, and revealing the devastation of a profoundly unequal encounter between cultures.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Couto's satisfying conclusion to his Sands of the Emperor trilogy (after The Sword and the Spear) finds 15-year-old series protagonist Imani pregnant and alone, and about to set sail with the Portuguese army to transport the recently captured king of Gaza, Ngungunyane, and other prisoners from Mozambique to Lisbon. Because Imani can speak Portuguese, she serves as translator for the soldiers and the prisoners, and as the lot travels from boat to boat and various ports, she bonds with one of Ngungunyane's wives, Dabondi, while navigating squabbles among soldiers, an assassination plot cooked up by the prisoners, unwanted sexual advances, and Ngungunyane's deteriorating sanity. Imani's goal is to safely reach Lisbon before giving birth and to reunite with her lover and live as a family—though once the group reaches Portugal, they hear word of continued fighting in Mozambique. With the precocious Imani's narration, Couto allows his protagonist's fears and hopes to take center stage, though the occasional epistolary communications folded into the narrative tend to distract. Despite a jarring time jump in the final chapter, Couto succeeds in wrapping up each character's story and in spotlighting the ravages of colonization. Series fans will enjoy this finale.
