The Cartographer of Absences

"Revelatory . . . An aching, dreamlike immersion." --Carl Hoffman, The Washington Post

"An intensely powerful work about revolution, compromise, and long-buried secrets . . . A haunting, compelling book." --Tobias Carroll, Words Without Borders

An atmospheric novel about a father and son in the waning days of colonial Mozambique by the winner of the 2025 PEN/Nabokov Award

Diogo Santiago is a celebrated Mozambican poet and intellectual, a well-known professor at the university in his country's capital. On the eve of a cyclone that will devastate the East African coast, he sets out for his hometown of Beira to receive a tribute from his fellow citizens. As he travels across Mozambique, his mind turns to the past--to his upbringing, and to the history of his country when it was still a Portuguese colony.

Diogo's father, himself a poet and a journalist, witnessed a terrible massacre committed during the waning days of the colonial regime. He was arrested by the Portuguese secret police for trying to reveal what happened--but the officer who oversaw the case kept a journal, which later finds its way into Diogo's hands. As the storm approaches Beira, threatening to wipe away the physical traces of his childhood, Diogo sorts through the journal, old letters, and family stories, and confronts the impermanence of his own memories. Along the way he meets Liana, a woman whose past is mysteriously connected to his own, and whose story just might shed light on what happened to his father.

A haunting novel of historical testimony, The Cartographer of Absences is one of Mia Couto's finest works. Drawing on the author's own life in colonial Mozambique, this book is a significant new entry in the world literature canon.