The Living and the Rest

"The limitless possibilities of fiction are brilliantly utilised . . . Ingenious" Irish Times "Agualusa's funny and lively tale turns increasingly ominous ahead of an explosive conclusion" Guardian ***A Financial Times Fiction in Translation Book of the Year 2023*** Daniel lives with artist Moira on her native Island of Mozambique. They are awaiting the birth of their child, while also organising the island's first literary festival. But as soon as the first festival guests arrive, the coast is hit by a cyclone. The island is spared, but the bridge to the mainland is left impassable, and telephone and internet connections are severed. The islanders - and the writers who have come for the festival - are cut off from the outside world. Left to their own devices, the authors forge new bonds and make the best of a situation that gets stranger each day. Some believe they're in an intermediate realm, a kind of limbo, and some have no choice but to write, as the boundaries between reality and fiction, past and future, and life and death begin to blur. Where do we go when it's all over? Perhaps to a small island. This is a novel about the nature of life and of time, and the extraordinary power of imagination and the written word, capable of creating anything and regenerating everything. Translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn

"The limitless possibilities of fiction are brilliantly utilised . . . Ingenious" Irish Times "Agualusa's funny and lively tale turns increasingly ominous ahead of an explosive conclusion" Guardian ***A Financial Times Fiction in Translation Book of the Year 2023*** Daniel lives with artist Moira on her native Island of Mozambique. They are awaiting the birth of their child, while also organising the island's first literary festival. But as soon as the first festival guests arrive, the coast is hit by a cyclone. The island is spared, but the bridge to the mainland is left impassable, and telephone and internet connections are severed. The islanders - and the writers who have come for the festival - are cut off from the outside world. Left to their own devices, the authors forge new bonds and make the best of a situation that gets stranger each day. Some believe they're in an intermediate realm, a kind of limbo, and some have no choice but to write, as the boundaries between reality and fiction, past and future, and life and death begin to blur. Where do we go when it's all over? Perhaps to a small island. This is a novel about the nature of life and of time, and the extraordinary power of imagination and the written word, capable of creating anything and regenerating everything. Translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn

"Cross J.M. Coetzee with Gabriel Garc?a M?rquez and you've got Jos? Eduardo Agualusa, Portugal's next candidate for the Nobel Prize" -- Alan Kaufman, author of Matches A thrilling tale that considers how the mind bends when the known world ends in a storm's flash A Financial Times Fiction in Translation Book of the Year and Winner of the Portuguese PEN Prize A funny and lively tale about a group of writers stranded at a literary festival turns increasingly ominous as it explores the nature of life and of time, and the extraordinary power of imagination and the written word. Writers from across Africa descend on the Isle of Mozambique to participate in the island's first literary festival. When a sudden cyclone strikes the land, they are cut off from the mainland. One writer wakes from sleep with lines running through her head, reaching for a small red notebook with dream trash written on the cover. Another posts a picture of a writing desk gleaming in the ancient light of the Captains-General Palace, now a museum. The caption: "If I had a desk like this, I'm sure I'd write more. I'm sure I'd write better." Agualusa traces their conversations as they wonder together whether the world they know has ended, and what, real or imagined, might come next. They talk, and set pens to paper, in this sometimes-surreal tale of how the physical world is changing rapidly around us and how we can (and must) forge new contexts.

"Cross J.M. Coetzee with Gabriel Garc?a M?rquez and you've got Jos? Eduardo Agualusa, Portugal's next candidate for the Nobel Prize" -- Alan Kaufman, author of Matches A thrilling tale that considers how the mind bends when the known world ends in a storm's flash A Financial Times Fiction in Translation Book of the Year and Winner of the Portuguese PEN Prize A funny and lively tale about a group of writers stranded at a literary festival turns increasingly ominous as it explores the nature of life and of time, and the extraordinary power of imagination and the written word. Writers from across Africa descend on the Isle of Mozambique to participate in the island's first literary festival. When a sudden cyclone strikes the land, they are cut off from the mainland. One writer wakes from sleep with lines running through her head, reaching for a small red notebook with dream trash written on the cover. Another posts a picture of a writing desk gleaming in the ancient light of the Captains-General Palace, now a museum. The caption: "If I had a desk like this, I'm sure I'd write more. I'm sure I'd write better." Agualusa traces their conversations as they wonder together whether the world they know has ended, and what, real or imagined, might come next. They talk, and set pens to paper, in this sometimes-surreal tale of how the physical world is changing rapidly around us and how we can (and must) forge new contexts.