Overview

The first novel to be translated into English from Guinea Bissau, The Ultimate Tragedy is a tale of love and emerging political awareness in an Africa beginning to challenge Portuguese colonial rule. Ndani leaves her village to seek a better life in the capital, finding work as a maid for a Portuguese family. The mistress of the house, Dona Deolinda, embarks on a mission to save Ndani's soul through religious teaching, but the master of the house has less righteous intentions. Ndani is expelled from the house and drifts towards home, where she becomes the wife of a village chief. He has built a mansion and a school to flaunt his power to the local Portuguese administrator, but he abandons Ndani when he finds she's not a virgin. She eventually finds love with the school's teacher, but in tumultuous times, making a future with an educated black man involves a series of hurdles. By turns humorous, heartrending and wise, The Ultimate Tragedy is a captivating novel that brings this little-known country to colourful, vivid life. AUTHOR: Abdulai Sila was born in 1958 in Catio, Guinea Bissau. He moved to the capital, Bissau, to complete his school studies and then to Dresden, Germany, to complete a degree in Power Engineering. He currently lives in Bissau and combines telecommunications work with writing. He is the author of four novels, A Ultima Tragedia, Eterna Paixao (Eternal Passion), Mistida (Mixed) and Memorias (Mantic Memories), all of which deal with Bissau-Guinean culture and history. He is the co-founder of the publisher Ku Si Mon Editora and he has also written a play, As Oracoes de Mansat (Mansat's Prayers), a Bissau-Guinean Macbeth.

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9781910213544

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'Reading The Ultimate Tragedy is to revisit Guinea Bissau's past as a Portuguese colony and by way of a collective voice, the anonymous narrator not only tells the story, but conveys the mood of black people's experience and thinking.' Via Atlantica Magazine

Author Information

Abdulai Sila! was born in 1958 in Catia, Guinea Bissau. He moved to the capital, Bissau, to complete his school studies and then to Dresden, Germany, to complete a degree in Power Engineering. He currently lives in Bissau and combines telecommunications work with writing. He is the author of four novels, AAsltima Tragedia, Eterna PaixaGBPo [Eternal Passion], Mistida [Mixed] and Memarias (Mantic Memories], all of which deal with Bissau-Guinean culture and history. Jethro Soutar is a translator of Spanish and Portuguese. His translation of By Night The Mountain Burns, by Equatorial Guinean author Juan Toma!sAvila Laurel, was shortlisted for the 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. He has translated Argentinian and Brazilian crime fiction, and the Brazilian graphic novel Picture a Favela by Andre Diniz for SelfMadeHero. In 2014, he co-founded Ragpicker Press and co-edited its debut title, The Football Cranicas, a collection of translated short-form writing from Latin America.

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