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2017 – A General Theory of Oblivion
Author: José Eduardo Agualusa
Translated from the original Portuguese by Daniel Hahn
2017 Winner!
Watch José Eduardo Agualusa’s Acceptance Speech, delivered by Daniel Hahn
Press Release Photographs
Winner Reading and Q & A, Pearse Street Library 10th June
2017 Longlist 2017 Shortlist Judging Panel Nominating Libraries
Judges’ citation
“Some biologists argue that a single bee, a single ant, is nothing more than the mobile cells of one individual. The true organisms are the beehive and the ant nest.” In A General Theory of Oblivion, José Eduardo Agualusa presents us with the beehive of Luanda and its recent history. Beginning with the extraordinary premise of a Portuguese woman who bricks herself into her apartment on the eve of Angolan independence, the novel gradually introduces character after character, their stories tessellating in unexpected ways.
With no connection to the city, Ludo views the events with puzzlement from her eleventh-floor eyrie, showing us scraps of Angola’s complex development varying from brutal arrests to a domesticated pygmy hippo. All around her, however, others are involved directly and we come to hear their stories too. Agualusa’s patchwork structure perfectly reflects the city’s organized chaos over twenty-eight years, each chapter standing alone but skilfully fitting into the whole.
Embedded within a convincing fiction of its own, the novel basks in the joy of slow storytelling. Poets are swallowed up by the earth, lovers separated and reunited, men killed and resurrected, the rich become poor and the poor become millionaires. The author enjoys teasing us with revelations we could never have seen coming, and as he does so his characters flesh out and take on unforeseen dimensions. There are no simple judgements here – just as Ludo moves from outright racism to love of Luanda and her neighbours, so a mercenary finds a family and a torturer finds morals. Each shift arranges the novel’s reality anew.
Agualusa’s language is pared down but equally inventive, using diaries and poetry written in charcoal on Ludo’s walls, humorous asides and words in local languages. Daniel Hahn has written a subtly sparkling English version, his translation never overpowering the original but helping Anglophone readers with inconspicuous interventions. The translator plays with English sounds, giving us poets with “more interest in pursuing the booze than the muse,” “gangly greyhounds and heavy asthmatic mastiffs” and “young people with lustrous, rust-coloured skin.” Hahn’s rendering of a fourteen-word poem retains beauty, brevity and wordplay – a great accomplishment.
Even while A General Theory of Oblivion details starvation, torture and killings and revolves around our need to forget, its tone and message are concerned with love. One of the novel’s pivotal animal characters is even named Love. It is love that redeems Ludo and others, and it is love for the novel’s Luanda setting that steeps the narrative in idiosyncratic detail. The writer gives his readers both understanding and hope, taking Angolan stories and making them universally applicable. No one is truly alone in José Eduardo Agualusa’s Luanda beehive, and his characters make us, too, feel deeply connected to the world.
About the Book
On the eve of Angolan independence, Ludo bricks herself into her apartment, where she will remain for the next thirty years. She lives off vegetables and pigeons, burns her furniture and books to stay alive and keeps herself busy by writing her story on the walls of her home.
The outside world slowly seeps into Ludo’s life through snippets on the radio, voices from next door, glimpses of a man fleeing his pursuers and a note attached to a bird’s foot. Until one day she meets Sabalu, a young boy from the street who climbs up to her terrace.
(from publisher)
About the Author
José Eduardo Agualusa was born in Huambo, Angola, in 1960, and is one of the leading literary voices in Angola and the Portuguese-speaking world. His novel Creole was awarded the Portuguese Grand Prize for Literature, and The Book of Chameleons won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2007. Agualusa lives between Portugal, Angola and Brazil.
Librarians’ Comments
Awarded Lusophone African Author, Agualusa builds an unusual character – based on a real person – of a woman who confines herself to her apartment, shocked by the events that led to Angolan independence and almost three decades of civil war. Agualusa masterfully portrays Angola and Luanda with all their violence, mysticism and lunacy but also warmth.
A remarkable novel that encourages the reader to continue in order to realize completely its extraordinary meaning. Written in a very literary way, the novel delights us by its quality and by the emotional story of the main character. Insofar as it reveals key moments of the recent Angola history intertwined with the lives of ordinary people, the author builds a kaleidoscope that ends up becoming a very, very good novel.
Shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2016, best translated book award for fiction.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Author
José Eduardo Agualusa
Country
AO
Nominating Library
Biblioteca Demonstrativa Maria da Conceição Moreira Salles – Ministério da Cultura, Brasilia, Brazil
Publisher
Harvill Secker, UK
Translation
Translated from the original Portuguese by Daniel Hahn
LIBRARIES IRELAND - FIND THIS BOOK
Categories: 2017, 2017, 2017 Shortlist, 2017 Translated, Previous Winners
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2017 - 遗忘的一般理论
作者。何塞-爱德华多-阿瓜鲁萨
由丹尼尔-哈恩从葡萄牙语原文翻译而来
2017年获奖者!
观看何塞-爱德华多-阿瓜鲁萨的获奖感言,由丹尼尔-哈恩发表
新闻发布照片
获奖者阅读和问答,皮尔斯街图书馆 6月10日
2017年长名单 2017年入围名单 评审委员会 提名图书馆
评委们的引言
"一些生物学家认为,一只蜜蜂,一只蚂蚁,只不过是一个人的移动细胞。真正的有机体是蜂巢和蚁巢"。在《遗忘的一般理论》中,何塞-爱德华多-阿瓜鲁萨向我们展示了罗安达的蜂巢和它的近代史。小说以一个葡萄牙女人在安哥拉独立前夕用砖头把自己塞进公寓的非同寻常的前提开始,逐渐介绍了一个又一个的人物,他们的故事以意想不到的方式拼凑起来。
由于与城市没有任何联系,卢多在她的11层楼里不解地看待这些事件,向我们展示了安哥拉复杂发展的片段,从残酷的逮捕到驯养的侏儒河马。然而,在她周围,其他人直接参与其中,我们也会听到他们的故事。阿瓜鲁萨的拼凑结构完美地反映了这个城市二十八年来有组织的混乱,每一章都是独立的,但又巧妙地融入了整体。
小说被嵌入其自身令人信服的虚构之中,沐浴在缓慢的讲故事的喜悦之中。诗人被大地吞噬,恋人分离又重聚,男人被杀又复活,富人变成穷人,穷人变成百万富翁。作者喜欢用我们无法预料的启示来挑逗我们,而在他这样做的时候,他的人物也变得丰满起来,并具有了不可预见的维度。这里没有简单的判断--就像鲁道从公然的种族主义转向对罗安达和她的邻居的爱一样,一个雇佣兵找到了家庭,一个施刑者找到了道德。每一次转变都会重新安排小说的现实。
阿瓜鲁萨的语言很简洁,但同样具有创造性,他使用了用木炭写在卢多墙上的日记和诗歌,幽默的旁白和当地语言的词语。丹尼尔-哈恩写了一个巧妙地闪光的英语版本,他的翻译从未压倒原作,而是通过不明显的干预帮助英语读者。译者发挥了英语的声音,给我们提供了 "对追求酒比追求缪斯更感兴趣 "的诗人,"粗壮的灰狗和沉重的哮喘藏獒 "以及 "皮肤有光泽、呈铁锈色的年轻人"。哈恩对一首14个字的诗的渲染保留了美感、简洁和文字游戏--这是一个伟大的成就。
即使《遗忘的总论》详细描述了饥饿、酷刑和杀戮,并围绕着我们对遗忘的需求,但它的语气和信息却与爱有关。小说中的一个关键动物角色甚至被命名为爱。正是爱救赎了鲁道和其他人,也正是对小说中罗安达环境的爱,使小说的叙述充满了特异性的细节。作家给他的读者以理解和希望,把安哥拉的故事变成普遍适用的。在何塞-爱德华多-阿瓜鲁萨的罗安达蜂巢中,没有人是真正孤独的,他的人物也让我们感到与这个世界深深相连。
关于此书
在安哥拉独立前夕,Ludo在她的公寓里用砖头垒起了自己的房子,她将在那里呆上30年。她以蔬菜和鸽子为生,烧掉自己的家具和书籍来维持生命,并在家里的墙壁上写下自己的故事,让自己忙碌起来。
外面的世界通过收音机里的片段、隔壁的声音、一个男人逃离追捕者的一瞥以及一张贴在鸟脚上的纸条,慢慢渗入鲁道的生活。直到有一天,她遇到了萨巴鲁,一个从街上爬到她阳台上的小男孩。
(来自出版商)
关于作者
何塞-爱德华多-阿瓜鲁萨1960年出生于安哥拉万博,是安哥拉和葡萄牙语世界的主要文学家之一。他的小说《克里奥尔语》被授予葡萄牙文学大奖,《变色龙之书》在2007年获得独立外国小说奖。阿瓜鲁萨生活在葡萄牙、安哥拉和巴西之间。
图书管理员的评论
荣获非洲葡语国家作家奖的阿瓜鲁萨构建了一个不同寻常的角色--基于一个真实的人--一个把自己限制在公寓里的女人,她被导致安哥拉独立和近三十年的内战的事件所震惊。阿瓜鲁萨巧妙地描绘了安哥拉和罗安达的所有暴力、神秘主义和疯狂,但也有温情。
这是一部了不起的小说,它鼓励读者继续阅读,以完全实现其非凡的意义。小说以一种非常文学化的方式写成,其质量和主角的情感故事让我们感到高兴。由于它揭示了安哥拉近期历史的关键时刻与普通人的生活交织在一起,作者建立了一个万花筒,最终成为一部非常、非常好的小说。
入围2016年曼布克国际奖,最佳翻译图书奖的小说。
其他信息
作者
何塞-爱德华多-阿瓜鲁萨
国家
澳大利亞
提名图书馆
玛丽亚-达-康西卡奥-莫雷拉-萨勒斯示范图书馆 - 文化部,巴西利亚,巴西
出版商
英国Harvill Secker公司
翻译
由丹尼尔-哈恩从葡萄牙语原文翻译而来
爱尔兰图书馆--查找此书
分类:2017年, 2017年, 2017年入围名单, 2017年翻译, 往届获奖者
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