Confession of the Lioness

May 18, 2015
Inspired by real events experienced by prolific author Couto (The Tuner of Silences), this lyrical novel is about the many facets of fear that haunt the people in the tiny village of Kulumani, deep in the bush of Mozambique. There has been a rash of violent deaths, leaving the inhabitants terrified—women are being killed by lions. There are conflicting accounts among the villagers about what has drawn the animals. Some say that the lions are otherworldly creatures, some say that the recent wars have made the lions brave, and still others say that the lions are not the culprit at all. Whatever it is, a local politician hires Archie Bullseye, a hunter by birthright, to come and kill the lions. When he arrives in Kulumani, he’s faced with the bitter suspicion and hostility of a society so isolated that any outside influence is immediately seen as a threat. Mariamar, a young woman whose sister was a victim of the attacks, watches him from afar. She wishes desperately for him to rescue her from a life stifled by the absolute power of her father and chronic illness. The story is told through Archie and Mariamar’s diaries, both lost souls searching from something to save them from a life shaped by trauma. “Pains pass but they don’t disappear,” Mariamar’s mother tells her. “They migrate into us, come to rest somewhere in our being, submerged in the depths of a lake.” Though the plot can get lost in dense dreamlike passages, its depiction of the oppression of women is impossible to shake. Couto weaves a surreal mystery of humanity against nature, men against women, and tradition against modernity.

June 1, 2015
In the tiny village of Kulumani, the people struggle to keep themselves safe from a marauding band of lions. Thirty-two-year-old Mariamar is the sole surviving daughter of Hanifa and Genito; her sister, Silencia, has just become the lions' latest victim. But while Mariamar and her family mourn, the people of Kulumani are finally spurred to action, and they call in a hunter to deal with the lions. Mariamar is sequestered at home by her parents to avoid the hunter, Archangel Bullseye, whom she had first met 16 years ago. Then, Bullseye pursued Mariamar with the same passion he used to pursue his animal prey. Mariamar's narration is masterfully intercut with the hunter's perspective; while she sees visions of her dead sister intermingled with the lions that killed her, Bullseye prepares for what he knows will be his last hunt. As the death toll mounts, the villagers become impatient with Bullseye's inability to kill the lions, and the crisis comes to a head in one terrifying, bloody night. Mozambique biologist and writer Couto (The Tuner of Silences, 2013, etc.) crafts a rich tale in which the spirit world is made real, animals are controlled by people, and dead ancestors are feared for their power to destroy cities. Couto also manages to explore the clash of disparate belief systems-tribal, Islam, Christian-in postcolonial Africa and deftly weaves in a critique of the embedded patriarchy. If there is a fault, it is the unevenness of the reveal of information which at times allows questions to linger too long, distracting the reader from fully falling under the spell of this otherwise entrancing narrative. A haunting, ethereal flight of magical realism.

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February 15, 2015

Winner of the 2014 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and one of Portuguese-speaking Africa's major writers, Couto sets this dark and mysterious tale in the isolated village of Kulumani. The women there are being stalked by lionesses, so the village hires an outsider tellingly named Archangel Bullseye to track and kill them. But Archangel begins to suspect that there's a mystery here he doesn't fully comprehend. Well worth watching, with all the fine writing emerging from Africa.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2015

In this latest from distinguished Mozambican writer Couto (The Tuner of Silences), a metaphysical tug of war between tradition and modernism, reason and superstition, is played out in the remote Mozambican village of Kulumani. The bush has become a living thing that stalks and kills young women. A lion is blamed for the deaths, and the government, ignoring the local tribesmen, calls on renowned hunter Archangel Bullseye to catch the predator. Mariamar Mpepe, the lone survivor of four sisters, confined to her home by her father, writes journal entries that, when interspersed chapter by chapter with Bullseye's diary, draw readers into a mystical, enigmatic backstory. As a child, Mariamar was plagued with a paralysis of unknown origin, a likely metaphor for the powerlessness of the women of Kulumani. At 16, she fell in love with an outsider, a hunter with whom she hoped to escape the stultifying village life. Could he be this same Archangel Bullseye? If so, is he the hunter or the hunted? VERDICT Couto, winner of the 2014 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, is known for his poetical writing style. Here he must share kudos with Brookshaw, whose translation beautifully captures the lyricism of this strange and disconcerting novel. Recommended for readers who embrace ambiguity. [See Prepub Alert, 1/25/15.]--Sally Bissell, Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.