A Radio France-Culture/Télérama best work of fiction by the winner of the Camões Prize and Neustadt Prize
Highly acclaimed by the NY Times
”Mwanito was eleven when he saw a woman for the first time, and the sight so surprised him he burst into tears.
Mwanito has been living in a former big-game park for eight years. The only people he knows are his father, his brother, an uncle, and a servant. He’s been told that the rest of the world is dead, that all roads are sad, that they wait for an apology from God. Mwanito has been told that crying and praying are the same thing. Both, it seems, are forbidden.
The eighth novel by the internationally bestselling Couto, The Tuner of Silences is the story of Mwanito’s struggle to reconstruct a family history that his father is unable to discuss. With the young woman’s arrival, however, the silence of the past quickly breaks down, and both his father’s story and the world are heard once more.
The Tuner of Silences has been published to acclaim in more than half a dozen countries. Now in its first English translation, this story of an African boy's quest for the truth endures as a magical, humanizing confrontation between one child and the legacy of war.”
”A phenomenal book … a paragon of contemporary African literature ... some of the most beautiful and moving prose being written today.” ―Words without Borders
“Brookshaw dexterously renders the novel's colloquial Portuguese into lively English…a task is made more exacting by the quality of Couto's brilliance.” —The New York Times
(Group read suggestion from Beth McCrea, book club co-founder.)