The Last Flight of The Flamingo
by Mia Couto

Translated from the Portuguese by David Brookshaw

• Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Bogota, Colombia
• Biblioteca Municipal Central de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

Publisher of Nominated Edition
Serpents Tail Ltd. ISBN 1852428139

'In Tizangara, the only facts are supernatural ones…To put it crudely and rudely, here's what happened: a severed penis was found right there on the trunk road just outside Tizangara. A large organ on the loose. Folk turned up from all around.' So the translator of Tizangara begins his tale. But more than folk turn up: car loads of foreign investigators and even a UN official, the Italian Massimo Risi, sweep into the small Mozambican town. And what a minefield they have come to investigate! A labyrinth of witnesses tell stories about each other, the town's past, its folklore, magic and occasional mayhem: among them are Anna Godwilling, the town's whore and therefore the most knowledgeable expert in local manhood, the ancient Temporina who changes into a seductive young girl and bewitches Massimo away from his investigation; the bombastic and obsequious administrator and his wife who insists on being called 'The First Lady'. Even the story of the last flight of the flamingo has its part to play.

In this witty and playful, yet incisive, novel Mia Couto provides a subtle look at emergent nationhood as it wrestles with the consequences of colonialism.

Mia Couto was born in Beira, Mozambique, in 1955. His first collection of poetry, Raiz de Orvalho (Root of Dew) was published in 1983. He has also published five collections of short stories and two novels, Terra Sonâmbula (1992) and A Varanda do Frangipani (1996), published in English as Under the Frangipani. He lives in Mozambique and works as an environmental biologist.