On on the evening of Thursday 22nd June, the author and translator gave a reading, followed by a Q&A session, introduced and moderated by Sinéad Crowley, in the Dublin City Library & Archive, Pearse Street.
Angolan author José Eduardo Agualusa was announced the winner of the 2017 International DUBLIN Literary Award for his novel A General Theory of Oblivion, translated from the Portuguese by Danial Hahn at a ceremony in Dublin’s Mansion House on Wednesday 21st June 2017.
A General Theory of Oblivion tells the story of Ludo, who on the eve of Angolan independence, bricks herself into her apartment, where she will remain for the next thirty years. She lives off vegetables and pigeons, burns her furniture and books to stay alive and keeps herself busy by writing her story on the walls of her home.
The outside world slowly seeps into Ludo’s life through snippets on the radio, voices from next door, glimpses of a man fleeing his pursuers and a note attached to a bird’s foot. Until one day she meets Sabalu, a young boy from the street who climbs up to her terrace.
José Eduardo Agualusa was born in Huambo, Angola, in 1960, and is one of the leading literary voices in Angola and the Portuguese-speaking world. His novel Creole was awarded the Portuguese Grand Prize for Literature, and The Book of Chameleons won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2007. Agualusa lives between Portugal, Angola and Brazil.
Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor and translator with some forty books to his name. His work has won him the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award.
Click play below to listen to the interview.
