Book description
The setting of this extraordinary novel is an old farmhouse in
Portugal - a house far enough from the Atlantic not to hear the
breaking waves during a storm but near enough for the walls to be
corroded by the salt in the air.
With most members of her large family having left the hardship of
life in this landscape of sand and stone for jobs in faraway places, a
young woman struggles to piece together her past from the many and
differing stories she is told. Left behind by a free-spirited,
feckless father, a seducer with a talent for drawing, she is raised by
her uncle who has married her mother. The only memories of her
father's one brief visit are the echoes of his footsteps on the stairs
leading to her room. The only signs of him are letters from the widest
reaches of the world- letters accompanied by brilliantly coloured
drawings of exotic birds: the cuckoo from India, the ibis from
Mozambique, the goose from Labrador, the hummingbird from the West
Indies. The daughter longs for her father and, as she grows up, she is
determined to find him and uncover the truth.
Beautifully written and imagined, this strikingly lyrical novel
evokes the atmosphere of a rural community in a changing world and
explores the timeless themes of family, independence, and the often
painful experience of emigration.
LÃda Jorge studied French literature in Lisbon and worked as a
teacher in Angola and Mozambique during the colonial wars there, and
taught at the University of Lisbon. She published eight novels and one
short story collection.
Margaret Jull Costa has translated works by Eça de Queiroz,
Fernando Pessoa and José Saramago, and also of a number of leading
Spanish authors.
