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 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

For years Ludovica Fernandez Mano has been afraid to leave their home She lives indoors with her sister, but  when her sister falls in love and marries, they move in with her new husband. One night the couple attends a party. The hours pass, the days pass and the couple hasn’t returned. Ludovica removes the door and raises a wall closing hesrelf in without thinking of what tomorrow will be like, only being accompanied by a dog. Beyond the walls there is a boiling world. In the three decades of isolating herself inside, Angola lives like heaven and hell: The illusion of liberation; the corrosive breakthrough of capitalism; the corruption; the greed, the vengeance. Inevitably, scraps of that world enter the house, altering and keeping her alive, preparing Ludovica for the final surprise.  

Ginga was an unforgettable queen in Angola during the 17th century; determined warrior, lucid and cunning ruler; she rebuilt her kingdom several times, commanded armies, negotiated and battled the great powers and other African rulers. She had a fiery and voracious private life and until her final days she was the owner of her destiny. In this novel, Jose Eduardo Agualusa reclaims such an unknown and unforgettable character with the hand of a born priest in Pernambuco, narrating the history of Ginga. Going inside a hidden territory and captivated by a form of life that he never imagined, through his eyes we discover a sensual world, vital and raw, where despite the cruelty, the greed and relentless rules of power, hides the possibility for love and beauty.

The Angolan revolution has concluded and with their arrival: Business politicians, smugglers, and torturers who are not exactly flawless have the present and the future at their service; however, that is not enough. They want a past, worthy of their position, a worthy family. Felix Ventura will go to their aid, specializing in fabricating ancestors, family relations, a cradle of honor. He is a man that does his job well. Until one of his clients takes the lies to be reality and goes out to find their imaginary parents. The true past comes to light, that of the wounds of history, the one that sooner or later imposes itself.