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Luuanda: Short Stories of Angola

José Luandino Vieira

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Feb 17, 2025 Tony rated it really liked it

Shelves: setting-africa, translated-fiction, short-stories

Earlier this month I read and enjoyed Vieira's novella "The Real Life of Domingos Xavier" and so picked up this 1964 collection of three stories (or maybe two short stories bracketing a novella). In some respects I suppose this could be viewed as a sequel of sorts to his most famous book "Our Musseque", which drew upon his own childhood to describe life in the shantytowns of Luanda in the 1940s and 50s. The stories here take place in the same shantytowns, but possibly slightly later, as the figh Earlier this month I read and enjoyed Vieira's novella "The Real Life of Domingos Xavier" and so picked up this 1964 collection of three stories (or maybe two short stories bracketing a novella). In some respects I suppose this could be viewed as a sequel of sorts to his most famous book "Our Musseque", which drew upon his own childhood to describe life in the shantytowns of Luanda in the 1940s and 50s. The stories here take place in the same shantytowns, but possibly slightly later, as the fight for independence is starting to take hold.

As outlined in the translator's introduction, the Luanda of that time was a city of some 150,000 "Europeans" (presumably almost all Portuguese, or "whites" in the stories), 50,000 middle to upper class mesticos ("mulattos"), surrounded by shantytowns housing approximately 500,000 Angolans of predominantly African descent (as a fully European child, Vierira was an outlier growing up in these communities). The three stories capture the struggles of daily life in these poor shantytowns, as well as the friction, humor, and community that develops among people living in such tightly packed quarters.

The first, "Gramma Xixi and Her Grandson Zeca Santos," follows a teenager without a job or prospects as he walks around the city with an empty stomach and an eye for the girls. The girl he pines for isn't interested because he has no prospects, the only work he can get is as a day laborer kicking back a quarter of his pay to the crew foreman. It ends on a note of despair.

The second and longest, "The Tale of the Thief and the Parrot," is told from jail, first by a Cape Verdean caught with a bag of stolen ducks, and then by his friend, a crippled mulatto brought in on suspicion of aiding in the duck theft. It's a meandering story, weaving in and out of relationships and lives of the characters, and the charms of a flirty young woman.

The final story, "The Tale of the Hen and the Egg," is the most lighthearted of them -- revolving around a dispute between two women neighbors about the ownership of an egg. One by one, various respected voices (white shopkeeper, ex-notary, religious student, police) are brought in to adjudicate, only to reveal their own prejudices and interests and have the neighborhood crowd shoo them away.

The overall effect of the stories is a compelling portrait of Luandan life of 60-70 years ago. The translation is notable as it does an exceptional job of capturing the linguistic blending of Portuguese and Kimbundu that developed over years of colonization. Vieira's intent was to capture how the real people of the shantytowns spoke, with the messy multi-lingual blending of vocabulary, pronunciation, and idiom. This vernacular approach comes through even in the English, as syntax and the retention of a number of italicized phrases and words bring the stories to life. ...more

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