THE CARTOGRAPHER OF ABSENCES

A writer returns to his native Mozambique to reckon with his father’s history there.

The latest novel by veteran Mozambican author Couto is inspired by his own father, a journalist and poet who witnessed the abuses of Portugal’s colonial regime before the country gained independence in 1975. Here, the lead narrator is Diogo, who in 2019 is visiting the country as an honored poet. The host, Liana, takes the opportunity to share with him a cache of files belonging to her grandfather Óscar, an agent of the colonial state police. Óscar detailed Diogo’s father, Adriano, under the pretext of collaborating with the anticolonial movement. But the story Couto unspools is more complicated than trumped-up accusations of plotting against the state. It is a story of racist state violence, centered on the 1973 massacre of Blacks in the town of Inhaminga by security forces. It is a story of the event’s consequences, particularly the death of Liana’s mother, alternately deemed a murder or suicide. It’s a story of Diogo sorting through the complexities of his father’s history, from poorly disclosed infidelities to attempts to counter the racist colonial forces. And as Liana and Diogo find their own relationship deepening, it’s an exploration of the possibilities for reconciliation. Couto’s narrative alternates between scenes in 2019, as Diogo revisits locations of his family’s past, and documents from Óscar’s archives that slowly reveal the truth about Inhaminga, Liana’s background, and his own conflicted feelings about state power. The formality of the documentation gives the novel a certain stiffness, and an approaching cyclone is a heavy-handed metaphor. But Couto’s storytelling is rich, while delivering a straightforward message: “When a regime starts arresting poets it is because that regime has lost its way.”

A contemplative study of colonialism’s collapse, and its enduring legacy.