#ReadAroundTheWorld. #Cabo Verde

This book is a story by Cabo Verdean author Dina Salústio, in fact the first novel written by a woman to be published in Cabo Verde (Cape Verde) and the first novel from that country to be translated into English. It is a story full of magical realism, love and loss. As the author says herself, “It is a story, then, like many others, of an unknown time and place, of everywhere and of always, a story in which women and men are crushed by too much beauty or, more commonly, too much cruelty”

Cabo Verde is an island archipelago in the Atlantic off West Africa. The people are predominantly Creole, the official language is Portuguese, but most people’s mother tongue is Creole. The islands were uninhabited when the Portuguese landed there in 1456, but were soon populated by slaves and Arabs taken from West Africa to work the plantations. The islands are largely Roman Catholic.

The story is set in the isolated village of Serrano which has no name for many centuries until made to choose one. It is a quiet dreamy place where no one laughs or thinks of new ideas. The men are sterile and rarely leave the village, the women must leave to have fertility treatment in the city and return pregnant with children not resembling their fathers. The village midwife is the most important person, initiating the men and delivering the children. The madwoman of Serrano is always on the fringes, shunned by the villagers but having a prophetic streak and being reincarnated periodically. The poverty of the village is contrasted with life in the city. “The poor were created for the powerful to get rich on, sin against and use to mock ideals of equality and seek their own salvation.”

Jeronimo eventually discovers a strange girl who has escaped a plane crash but is amnestic. He nurses her back to health and then raises the child, Filipa, she unexpectedly leaves him with. The story later follows these three characters to the city.

I found this story difficult to get into initially due to rapid transitions between points of view and time setting. I did find myself becoming invested in Jeronimo and Filipas’ story as it unfolded. Then the ending seemed rapid too. This was an interesting read but suffered from some pacing issues. ( )

This is the first novel by a female author to be published in Cape Verde, and the first to be translated into English.

The novel opens in Serrano, an isolated village on the cusp of modernization. It is a mystical place, full of magical realism. The midwife is the most powerful member of the village, delivering babies and whispering their fates to them, initiating boys into manhood, and using her wisdom to maintain the balance between nature and the inhabitants. Watching over everything as both an outsider and the ultimate insider is the madwoman, reborn every 33 years until her fate is fulfilled.

Jeronimo leaves the village to fulfill his military service and wants to stay in the city and be a mechanic, but he promises his father to return and tend their land. One day he finds a delirious woman in the woods and falls in love with her. He is an intermediary between the rural village and the modern city.

Filipa lives in the city and is a successful businesswoman, but feels empty and rudderless since she left Serrano as a child. Life in the city is modern and sensible, but she misses her father and her friend, the madwoman.

Moving back and forth between village and city, Jeronimo and Filipa, the novel explores themes of urbanization and environmental degradation, female empowerment, and the murky delineations between sanity and madness. The author's language reflects the environment, being lush and convoluted when the action takes place in Serrano and almost staccato when in the city. Recommended for those interested in magical realism and/or ecofeminism. ( )