This is great: CBC's Ideas with Paul Kennedy features an entertaining, colourful, hilarious, nigh hour-long conversation with Angolan trickster/charmer Ondjaki. Literary equations are goofy, but I kinda like this one: imagine if the benevolent ghosts of Clarice Lispector & Mark Twain crosspolinated to try their hand at utopic YA set during the Angolan Civil War. That might give you a sense of the eccentricity and magic behind his picaresque Granma Nineteen and the Soviet's Secret, a coming-of-age story that is literally explosive.
I caught this interview the night it aired. I am always on the look out for interesting works in translation so I was very intrigued by the conversation. I bought and read the book within the following week and have since listened to the podcast again.
ReplyDeleteI am so grateful to have found this promising young writer and your publishing house. Thank you!