Dina Salústio
Autore di The Madwoman of Serrano (Dedalus Africa)
Sull'Autore
Opere di Dina Salústio
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Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Nome legale
- Oliveira, Bernardina
- Data di nascita
- 1941
- Sesso
- female
- Nazionalità
- Cabo Verde
- Luogo di nascita
- Santo Antão, Cabo Verde
- Luogo di residenza
- Cabo Verde
Portugal
Angola - Attività lavorative
- social worker
teacher
journalist - Organizzazioni
- Associação Escritores Cabo-Verdianos
- Premi e riconoscimenti
- Rosalía de Castro Award (lifetime achievement, 2016)
Utenti
Recensioni
Liste
Premi e riconoscimenti
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 5
- Utenti
- 24
- Popolarità
- #522,742
- Voto
- 4.2
- Recensioni
- 2
- ISBN
- 5
- Lingue
- 2
This book is a story by Cabo Verdean author Dina Salústio, in fact the first novel written by a woman to be published in Cabo Verde (Cape Verde) and the first novel from that country to be translated into English. It is a story full of magical realism, love and loss. As the author says herself, “It is a story, then, like many others, of an unknown time and place, of everywhere and of always, a story in which women and men are crushed by too much beauty or, more commonly, too much cruelty”
Cabo Verde is an island archipelago in the Atlantic off West Africa. The people are predominantly Creole, the official language is Portuguese, but most people’s mother tongue is Creole. The islands were uninhabited when the Portuguese landed there in 1456, but were soon populated by slaves and Arabs taken from West Africa to work the plantations. The islands are largely Roman Catholic.
The story is set in the isolated village of Serrano which has no name for many centuries until made to choose one. It is a quiet dreamy place where no one laughs or thinks of new ideas. The men are sterile and rarely leave the village, the women must leave to have fertility treatment in the city and return pregnant with children not resembling their fathers. The village midwife is the most important person, initiating the men and delivering the children. The madwoman of Serrano is always on the fringes, shunned by the villagers but having a prophetic streak and being reincarnated periodically. The poverty of the village is contrasted with life in the city. “The poor were created for the powerful to get rich on, sin against and use to mock ideals of equality and seek their own salvation.”
Jeronimo eventually discovers a strange girl who has escaped a plane crash but is amnestic. He nurses her back to health and then raises the child, Filipa, she unexpectedly leaves him with. The story later follows these three characters to the city.
I found this story difficult to get into initially due to rapid transitions between points of view and time setting. I did find myself becoming invested in Jeronimo and Filipas’ story as it unfolded. Then the ending seemed rapid too. This was an interesting read but suffered from some pacing issues.… (altro)