The Joyful Song of the Partridge

· New York Review of Books
E-book
496
Pages
Éligible
Les notes et avis ne sont pas vérifiés. En savoir plus

À propos de cet e-book

A roiling chronicle of motherhood and colonization from a writer who “alternates between a dramatic, high-octane style and a terse and humorous frankness” (Sheila Heti)

Recipient of the 2021 Camões Prize, the most important award for literature in the Portuguese language


A potent whirl of history, mythology, and grapevine chatter, The Joyful Song of the Partridge absorbs readers into its many hiding places and along the wandering paths of its principal characters, whose stark words will stay with you long after the journey is done.

No one knows where Maria des Dores came from. Did she ride in on the armored spines of crocodiles, was she carried many miles in the jaws of fish?

The only clear fact is that she is here, sitting naked in the river bordering a town where nothing ever happens.

The townspeople murmur restlessly that she is possessed by perverse impulses. They interpret her arrival as an omen of crop failure or, in more hopeful tones, a sign that womankind will soon seize power from the greedy hands of men.

As The Joyful Song of the Partridge unfolds, Paulina Chiziane spirals back in time to Maria’s true origins: the days of Maria’s mother and father when the pressure to assimilate in Portuguese-controlled Mozambique formed a distorting bond on the lives of black Mozambicans.

À propos de l'auteur

Paulina Chiziane, born in 1955, studied Linguistics in Maputo and published her first novel, Balada de Amor ao Vento, after Mozambique gained independence in 1990. It was the first novel published by a Mozambican woman. Chiziane prefers to consider herself a storyteller rather than a novelist, and bases her work on the rich heritage of the oral tradition. In 2021, she won the Camões Prize, the world’s most important distinction in the Portuguese language.

Translator David Brookshaw is a professor emeritus at the University of Bristol, England. He has published widely in the field of Brazilian and Lusophone postcolonial studies, and has also translated the work of various authors from Portuguese, including Mia Couto’s Confession of the Lioness and Onésimo Almeida’s Tales from the Tenth Island. He has also compiled an anthology of stories by the Portuguese writer José Rodrigues Miguéis, The Polyhedric Mirror.

Donner une note à cet e-book

Dites-nous ce que vous en pensez.

Informations sur la lecture

Smartphones et tablettes
Installez l'application Google Play Livres pour Android et iPad ou iPhone. Elle se synchronise automatiquement avec votre compte et vous permet de lire des livres en ligne ou hors connexion, où que vous soyez.
Ordinateurs portables et de bureau
Vous pouvez écouter les livres audio achetés sur Google Play à l'aide du navigateur Web de votre ordinateur.
Liseuses et autres appareils
Pour lire sur des appareils e-Ink, comme les liseuses Kobo, vous devez télécharger un fichier et le transférer sur l'appareil en question. Suivez les instructions détaillées du Centre d'aide pour transférer les fichiers sur les liseuses compatibles.