Pensativities. Selected Essays: 14 (Biblioasis International Translation Series) - Tapa blanda

Praise for Pensativities "The essays of Pensativities ... confirm Couto's status as a public intellectual." --The Guardian "Remarkable ... If his recent Neustadt Prize is any indication, [Couto] is a presumptive Nobel Prize-winning writer that we ... should be reading."--National Post "For [Mia Couto], the postcolonial project is not primarily political or economic; it is humanistic in nature, and literary in its means. Its aim is to reconcile history and myth, past and present, subjugator and subject. It brings together black and white, male and female, Africa and the West, young and old, the city and the bush... When reading Couto, it sometimes seems that it is not only the fate of Mozambique or even Africa that is at stake, but that of the whole world."--Ryu Spaeth, Music & Literature "If there is an overarching drive that threads the collection together, it's Couto's commitment to recognize history's numerous flaws, and to use this history to embrace a diverse future, full of 'hybridities' of both self and cultural environs ... A fine writer who deserves a wide North American audience ... [Couto] is a constant witness to a country--flush with nouveau riche and mass poverty--trying to figure out its place in both Africa and the world."--Numero Cinq "[Having] helped birth ... the global literary scene's love affair with African fiction, Couto is a polymath who not only sustains a lively scientific career but is also a former political activist once deeply involved in the fight for his country's independence."--OZY

Mia Couto, an environmental biologist from Mozambique, is the author of 25 books of fiction, essays and poems in his native Portuguese. Couto's novels and short story collections have been translated into 20 languages. Two of his novels have been made into feature films. His work has been awarded important literary prizes in Mozambique, South Africa, Portugal, Italy and Brazil. His books have been bestsellers in Africa, Europe and Latin America. Six of Couto's books have been translated into English in the United Kingdom: two short story collections by Heinemann and four novels by Serpent's Tail. In 2007 he was the first African author to win the Latin Union Award for Romance Languages; in 2013 he was awarded the 100,000 Camoes Prize for Literature, in recognition of his life's work. In 2014 he received the $50,000 Neustadt Prize for Literature, and in 2015 he was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.