sleepwalking land is a novel by Mozambican writer Mia Couto. The book was published for the first time in 1992 and tells the story of the boy Muidinga and the old man Tuahir, who, fleeing the civil war, find shelter in an abandoned machimbombo (a bus) in a road.
Muidinga finds Kindzu's notebooks, whose accounts are related to the boy's past. Thus, the work, amidst fantastic events, shows the elements of Mozambican culture, in order to enhance the national identity, from a lyrical but also a critical perspective.
Read too: Niketche — A History of Polygamy: analysis of the work of Mozambican writer Paulina Chiziane
work summary sleepwalking land
Mozambican novel from the post-independence period.
Its author is the writer Mia Couto.
Historical context: Mozambican civil war.
Protagonists: Muidinga, Tuahir and Kindzu.
Features traces of magical realism or fantastic.
Analysis of the work sleepwalking land
Characters of the work sleepwalking land
assane
carolinda
Stephen
me
farida
June
Kindzu
Muidinga
Nhamataca
Quintino
pomegranate
skeleton
taímo
Tuahir
Virginia
construction time sleepwalking land
O romance takes place at some point during the Mozambican civil war, which lasted from 1977 to 1992.
construction space sleepwalking land
Most of Muidinga and Tuahir's story takes place on an abandoned bus on a road in Mozambique. Kindzu's account already mentions villages in that country, such as Matimati.
Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)
plot of the work sleepwalking land
→ Muidinga and Tuahir
The narrator describes a “dead road”, where “burnt cars” and “remains of loot” rot. On this road, an old man and a boy miserable looking walk. Old Tuahir named the young man Muidinga. Both are fleeing the civil war that has gripped Mozambique.
They find a burnt-out machimbombo (bus), full of bodies. The old man decides to take shelter there, but the charred bodies bother the boy. So, they decide to bury those corpses. When they return, they find one more; however, he is a man shot dead. Beside it is a suitcase and, inside it, some notebooks, which tell the story of Kindzu.
Next, the old Tuahir tells how he met the boy. On one occasion he was asked to help bury six dead children, but one of them, Muidinga, was alive and very ill, in such a way that the old man was certain of his death, when “it happened inversely to the expected":
And so it was. At first, the kid just uttered strange moans. Days passed, with no food other than water. The boy remained curled up on himself, vomiting, aching from head to toe. Without moving, he already cracked his end. Tuahir asked him to get up and stay upright, if only for a short while. With help, the dying man could sustain himself.
O storyteller back to the present time, when Muidinga and Tuahir are trapped in a net and taken to old Siqueleto's house. Later, Siqueleto releases his prisoners and then “puts his finger in his ear, sticking it deeper and deeper until they feel the dull sound of something popping. The old man takes his finger and a gush of blood pulls from his ear. It withers away until it becomes the size of a seed”.
Tuahir meets old Nhamataca, with whom he worked in the past. However, after a violent storm, Nhamataca is carried away by the current. Later, Muidinga comes across some old women, who assault him and sexually abuse him. Next, the young and the old talk about women.
And, before Tuahir falls ill and dies, he tells why Muidinga doesn't remember the past:
Tuahir tells him the truth. The dwarf had been taken to the sorcerer. The old man had asked him to get everything out of his head.
— I asked this because it is better to have no memory of this past time. You were still lucky with the disease. You could forget everything. While I don't, I carry this weight...
Read too: Júlio Cortázar — Argentine author whose works have marks of fantastic realism
→ Kindzu's notebooks
Kindzu introduces himself, talks about his childhood and his brother Junhito. He says that, later on, alone, he went in search of a better life. So he boarded a canoe and, during the journey at sea, his father — Taímo — appeared to him in a dream. Finally, he arrived at a village, where he met Assane, the “former secretary of the administrator”.
Driven out of the village, Kindzu returns to the sea, but a ghost takes him to an abandoned boat, where he meets Farida. She says that, as a child, she was alone, without her mother, and was taken care of by the Portuguese couple Romão Pinto and Mrs Virgínia. But when she became a woman, she became the target of Romao's lustful desires.
Finally, Virginia took Farida to live under the care of a priest. However, dissatisfied, Farida decided to return to the village of her childhood. On the way, she went to visit Virginia, but only found Romao and ended up being raped by him. Afterwards, she left for her native village, where she found out she was pregnant.
When Gaspar was born, she handed him over to the church and never saw him again. So she asks Kindzu to find Gaspar for her, and they become sexually involved. Kindzu then returns to the village and rejoins Assane. In addition, he ends up having sex with Carolinda, the wife of administrator Estevão Jonas.
The husband discovers and arrests Kindzu. However, Carolinda releases her lover, but he does not leave the village. Kindzu resolves to "stalk old Virginia" in case she has information about Gaspar. Later, the old woman tells that one day a boy appeared in her backyard, and she placed the child in a well. When she decided to take Gaspar home, he ran away after a few days.
Kindzu decides to leave the village on a machimbombo. However, the night before, he falls asleep and dreams:
I felt that the night was coming to an end. Something told me I should hurry before that dream was extinguished. Because I was now having hallucinated visions of a road I was following. [...]. A burnt machimbombo appeared to me. It was slumped on a curb, its forefront flat against a tree. Suddenly, my head pops with a dull thud. It seemed that the whole world was bursting, strands of blood were unraveling against a background of very white light. Vacillo, overcome by sudden fainting. I feel like lying down, nestling in the warm earth. There I drop the suitcase where I bring the notebooks. [...]. Farther on follows a dwarf with a slow pace. In his 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.
Characteristics of the work sleepwalking land
Mozambican work from the post-independence period, sleepwalking land it has a sociopolitical character, as it demonstrates the suffering caused by the civil war. Furthermore, it seeks to highlight the multicultural elements of Mozambique, in order to enhance the national identity.
With one language marked by lyricism and colloquiality, the novel has the presence of neologisms, allegories and elements of magical or fantastic realism. It also brings a narrative with a memorialistic tone, which gives voice to the anonymous beings who struggled for survival during the armed conflict.
As for its structure, the book contains eleven chapters:
the dead road
the dream lyrics
The bitter taste of the make-up
The lesson of Skeleton
the river maker
The desecrating elderly
hands dreaming women
the sigh of trains
Mirages of solitude
swamp disease
waves writing stories
And features eleven Kindzu notebooks:
The time when the world was our age
a pit in the roof of the world
Matimati, the land of water
the daughter of heaven
Oaths, promises, mistakes
The return to Matimati
a drunk guide
Quintino's Souvenirs
Virginia Presentation
in the field of death
the land pages
adaptation of sleepwalking land
sleepwalking land (2007) — film directed by Teresa Prata.
Read too: Pepetela — the first Angolan to win the Camões Award
Mia Couto, the author of sleepwalking land
Mia Couto (Antonio Emílio Leite Couto), son of Portuguese, born on July 5, 1955, in Beira, a Mozambican city. Later, he started the Faculty of Medicine in Maputo, the country's capital. He dropped out of the course and started dedicating himself to journalism. Afterwards, he went to college in biology and embarked on a career as a university professor.
![Mia Couto, in the cover photo of the book Poemas Escolhas, published by Companhia das Letras.[2]](/f/405711af5a4a6af681688f9c4218b569.jpg)
Alongside his roles as a journalist and biologist, he developed his writing career. In this way he published his first book — dew root — in 1983. But it was in 1992, with the publication of his novel sleepwalking land, that the author experienced literary success. Finally, it was consecrated, in 2013, with the famous Camões Award. To learn more about the author, read: Mia Couto.
Historical context of sleepwalking land
Mozambique's independence from Portugal was made official on June 25, 1975. Then, the state started to rely on a one-party model. Thus, the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), of Marxist-Leninist ideology, took over the government of the country.
However, approximately two years later, on May 30, 1977, a civil war broke out. To fight the Frelimo government, an opposition force, the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), emerged. Thus, the conflict only ended on October 4, 1992, when the two sides signed the General Peace Agreement.
Image credits
[1] Company of Letters (reproduction)
[2] Company of Letters (reproduction)
by Warley Souza
Literature teacher
