Under the Frangipani by Mia Couto
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

With a simple, but a strong and grave voice (which reminds me of Ismail Kadare), Mia Couto recreates in “Under the Frangipani” the history of his country, Mozambique: with its traditions, beauty and complexity, with its struggles across the centuries of occupation and years of weird freedom. Not only the whole story, but every sentence of this original micro-novel is a fable. The big truths, in all their deepness, are said within an amazing simple way that only can come from the wisdom of the already lived life; or, better, from the afterlife.  In the Sao Nicolau fort is no time, and (almost) no life. There are only dead people and dead souls. Alive is only frangipani, the old big tree, which first has to lose his leaves, in order to blossom up again. And this is hope; the hope of life after the death.
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