Terra Sonâmbula is a novel by African writer Mia Couto, which was published in 1992. It is considered one of the best African works of the 20th century.
The title of the work refers to the country's instability and, therefore, to the lack of rest of the land that remains “sleepwalking”.
Reality and dream are two fundamental elements in the narrative. In the preface of the book, we have the excerpt:
"It was said of that land that it was sleepwalking. Because while men slept, the earth moved across spaces and times. When they awoke, the inhabitants looked at the new face of the landscape and knew that, that night, they had been visited by the fantasy of the dream. (Belief of the inhabitants of Matimati)"
Structure of the Work
Terra Somnambula is divided into 11 chapters:
- First chapter: The Dead Road (which includes “Kinzu's First Notebook”: The Time When the World Was Our Age)
- Second Chapter: The Letters of the Dream (which includes the “Second notebook of Kindzu”: A Pit in the Ceiling of the World”)
- Third Chapter: The Bitter Taste of Maquela (which includes “Third Kindzu Notebook”: Matimati, The Land of Water)
- Fourth Chapter: The Lesson of Skeleton (which includes the “Fourth notebook of Kindzu”: The Daughter of Heaven)
- Fifth Chapter: The Maker of Rivers (which includes the “Fifth notebook of Kindzu”: Oaths, Promises, Mistakes)
- Sixth Chapter: The Profaning Elders (which includes the “Sixth notebook of Kindzu”: The Return to Matimati)
- Seventh Chapter: Young Men Dreaming Women (which includes the “Seventh Notebook of Kindzu”: A Drunken Guide)
- Eighth Chapter: The Sigh of the Trains (which includes the “Eighth notebook of Kindzu”: Memories of Quintino)
- Ninth Chapter: Miragens da Solitude (which includes the “Ninth notebook of Kindzu”: Virginia's presentation)
- tenth chapter: The Disease of the Swamp (which includes the “Tenth notebook of Kindzu”: In the Field of Death)
- Eleventh Chapter: Waves Writing Stories (which includes “Last Kindzu Notebook”: The Pages of Earth)
Main characters
- Muidinga: protagonist of the story who lost his memory.
- Tuahir: old sage who guides Muidinga after the war.
- skeleton: tall old man and last survivor of a village.
- Kindzu: dead boy who wrote his diary.
- taímo: Kindzu's father.
- June: Kindzu's brother.
- farida: woman with whom Kindzu has a relationship.
- Aunt Euzinha: aunt of Farida.
- Mrs Virginia: Portuguese and Farida's considerate mother.
- pomegranate pinto: Portuguese and considerate father of Farida.
- gaspar: missing son of Farida and who was made by the abuse of his adoptive father: Romão.
- Stephen Jonas: administrator and husband of Caroline.
- Caroline: wife of the administrator and who sleeps with Kindzu.
- assane: former administrative secretary of the Matimati region.
- Quintino: Kindzu guide.
Summary
Muidinga is a boy who suffered amnesia and was hoping to find his parents. Tuahir is an old sage who tries to rescue the boy's entire history, teaching him again everything about the world. They are fleeing the civil war conflicts in Mozambique.
Early on, while the two are walking along the road, they come across a bus that was burned in the Machimbombo region. Next to a corpse, they find a diary. In “Kinzu Notebooks”, the boy tells details of his life.
Among other things, the boy describes about his father who was a fisherman and suffered from sleepwalking and alcoholism.
In addition, Kindzu mentions the problems of his family's lack of resources, the death of his father, the carnal relationship he has with Farida and the beginning of the war.
Abandoned by his mother, Kindzu recounts moments of his life in his diary. Likewise, he fled the country's civil war.
Thus, the story of the two is narrated, interspersed with the story of the boy's diary. The bodies found were buried by them and the bus served as a shelter for a while for Muidinga and Tuahir.
Ahead, they fell into a trap and were taken prisoner by an old man named Shekeletus. However, they were soon released. Finally, Siqueleto, one of the survivors from his village, kills himself.
Tuahir reveals to Muidinga that he was taken to a sorcerer so that his memory would be erased and thus avoid much suffering. Tuahir has the idea of building a boat to continue the journey across the sea.
In Kindzu's last notebook, he recounts the moment when he finds a burned bus and feels death. He even saw a boy with his notebooks in his hand, the son of Farida he was looking for so much: Gaspar. So we can conclude that Gaspar was actually the boy who suffered amnesia: Muidinga.
"I feel like lying down, nestling in the warm earth. There I drop the suitcase where I bring the notebooks. An inner voice asks me not to stop. It's my father's voice that gives me strength. I overcome the numbness and proceed along the road. Farther along follows a dwarf with a slow pace. In your hands are papers that look familiar to me. I approach and, with a start, confirm: these are my notebooks. Then, with my chest suffocated, I call: Gaspar! And the boy shudders as if born a second time. The notebooks fall from his hand. Moved by a wind that was born not from the air but from the ground itself, the leaves spread across the road. Then, one by one, the letters turn into grains of sand and, little by little, all my writings turn into pages of earth."
Work Analysis
Written in poetic prose, the writer's main focus is to provide an overview of Mozambique after years of civil war in the country.
This bloody war, which lasted about 16 years (1976 to 1992), left 1 million dead.
The main objective is to reveal the horrors and misfortunes that involved the war in the country. Conflicts, daily life, dreams, hope and the struggle for survival are the most relevant points in the plot.
Much of the work, the writer narrates the events and adventures of Muidinga and Tuahir. This all parallels the Kindzu story.
Mia Couto adds a touch of fantasy and surrealism to the novel, thus mixing reality with fantasy (magical realism). The narrative focus of the work also demonstrates this mix, that is, it is sometimes narrated in the third person, sometimes in the first.
Some local terms are used in the language of the work, marking orality. In addition to descriptions, indirect speech is widely used, including the characters' speech.
The plot is not linear, that is, moments in the characters' story are interspersed with others.
Excerpts from the Work
To better understand the language used by the writer, check out some excerpts from the work below:
Chapter 1
“In that place, the war had killed the road. Only the hyenas crawled along the paths, nuzzling amid ash and dust. The landscape was mixed with unseen sadness, in colors that stuck to your mouth. They were dirty colors, so dirty that they had lost all their lightness, forgotten about the daring of lifting wings through the blue. Here, heaven had become impossible. And the living got used to the ground, in resigned learning of death.”
Chapter 2
“Over the page, Muidinga peers at the old man. He has his eyes closed, looks sleepy. After all, I've only been reading to my ears, Muidinga thinks. I've also been reading for three nights now, the old man's tiredness is natural, Muidinga condescends. Kindzu's notebooks had become the only thing happening in that shelter. Searching for firewood, cooking the reserves in the suitcase, carrying water: in everything the boy hurried.”
Chapter 3
“Muidinga wakes up with the first light. During the night, his sleep had shaken. Kindzu's writings begin to occupy his fantasy. At dawn he even thought he could hear Taímo's drunken goats. And he smiles, remembering. The old man still snores. The kid stretches as he leaves the machimbombo. The cacimbo is so full that you can barely see it. The kid's rope remains tied to the tree's branches. Muidinga pulls by her to bring the animal into view. Then he feels the rope is loose. Had the kid run away? But if so, what was the reason for that red dyeing the bow?”
Chapter 4
“Once again Tuhair decides to explore the neighboring bushes. The road brings no one. As long as the war was not over, it was even better that no one was stranded there. The old man always repeated:
- Something, someday, will happen. But not here, I amended it softly.”
Chapter 5
“Muidinga put down his notebooks, penguin. Old Siqueleto's death followed him, in a state of doubt. It was not the pure death of the man that weighed on him. Are we not really getting used to our own outcome? We come to death like a river disembodies in the sea: one part is being born and, simultaneously, the other is already haunted by the endless. However, in the passing of Shekeletus there was a growing thorn. With him all villages died. The ancestors were orphaned from the land, the living no longer had a place to perpetuate traditions. It wasn't just one man but a whole world that disappeared.”
Chapter 6
“Around the machimbombo Muidinga hardly recognizes anything. The landscape continues its tireless changes. Does the earth, alone, wandering on errands? One thing Muidinga is right: it's not the ruined bus that moves. Another certainty he has: the road does not always move. Just every time he reads Kindzu's notebooks. The day after the reading, his eyes open up to other visions.”
Chapter 7
“The rain tinkled (Timbilar: playing marimba, de mbila (singular), tjmbila (plural)) on the roof of the machimbombo. The wet fingers of heaven entertained themselves in that tinkle. Tuahir is wrapped in a capulana. He looks at the boy who is lying down, his eyes open, in a sincere dream.
- Charra, it's cold. Now you can't even make a fire, all the wood is wet. Are you listening to me, kid?
Muidinga was still absorbed. According to tradition, he was supposed to rejoice: rain was a good harbinger, a sign of good times knocking at the door of destiny.
- You're missing a woman, said the old man. You've been reading about this woman, this Farida. She must be pretty, the girl.”
Chapter 8
“- I'm going to confess to you kid. I know it's true: we're not the ones walking. It's the road.
- That I said a long time ago.
- You said, no. I say so.
And Tuahir reveals: of all the times he had guided her along the paths, it was just a pretense. Because none of the times they had gone out into the woods had they gone any real distances.
- We were always close by, just a few meters away.”
Chapter 9
“Looking at the heights, Muidinga notices the various cloud races. White, mulatto, black. And the variety of sexes was also found in them. The feminine cloud, soft: the bare-come, bare-go. The male cloud, cooing with the breast of a pigeon, in a happy illusion of immortality.
And he smiles: how one can play with the most distant things, bring the clouds close like birds that come to eat from our hand. He remembers the sadness that had stained him the night before.”
Chapter 10
“The young man doesn't even know how to explain. But it was as if the sea, with its infinities, gave him a relief from leaving that world. Without meaning to, he thought of Farida, waiting on that boat. And he seemed to understand the woman: at least, on the ship, she was still waiting. So he faces that march through the swamp. They splash in an immensity: mud, mud and smelly clays.”
Chapter 11
“The waves go up the dune and surround the canoe. The boy's voice is barely heard, muffled by the shaking of the waves. Tuahir is lying down, watching the water coming. Now the boat rocks. Little by little, she becomes light as a woman at the taste of a caress and frees herself from the lap of the earth, already free, navigable.
Then begins Tuahir's journey to a sea full of infinite fantasies. Thousands of stories are written on the waves, those of rocking children around the world.”
Who is Mia Couto?
Antônio Emílio Leite Couto, known as Mia Couto, was born in 1955 in the city of Beira, Mozambique, Africa. "Terra Sonâmbula" (1992) was his first published novel.
In addition to being a writer, he also worked as a journalist and biologist. Mia Couto has a vast literary work that includes novels, poetry, short stories and chronicles.
With the publication of "Terra Sonâmbula" he received the "National Prize for Fiction by the Association of Mozambican Writers" in 1995. In addition, he was awarded the "Prêmio Camões" in 2013.
Film
The feature film “Terra Sonâmbula” was released in 2007 and directed by Teresa Prata. The film is an adaptation of the novel by Mia Couto.
To know more: Mia Couto: poems, works and biography