Pensativities

Finalist for the 2015 Man Booker International Prize Winner of the 2014 Neustadt Prize Winner of the 2013 Camoes Prize

What would Barack Obama’s 2004 campaign have looked like if it unfolded in an African nation? What does it mean to be an African writer today? How do writers and poets from all continents teach us to cross the sertão, the savannah, the barren places where we’re forced to walk within ourselves? Bringing together the best pieces from his previously untranslated nonfiction collections, alongside new material presented here for the first time in any language, Pensativities offers English readers a taste of Mia Couto as essayist, lecturer, and journalist—with essays on cosmopolitanism, poverty, culture gaps, conservation, and more.

“Mia Couto’s words help weave the story of Mozambique. Couto’s language is enriched by his country’s idioms, voices—and possibilities.”—New York Times -- Biblioasis