A General Theory of Oblivion

The brilliant new novel from the winners of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, José Eduardo Agualusa and his translator Daniel Hahn

A remarkable novel from one of Angola’s most notable storytellers

The light detachment and readability of Louis de Bernières at his best, but combined with the sharp insights of JM Coetzee… Agualusa’s writing is a delight throughout

In the hands of a literary expert and sensitive empathist like Agualusa, Ludo’s life story is irresistible

Agualusa has already become one of lusophone Africa's most distinctive voices. In a line that was surely included to bait book reviewers, one of the novel's characters declares: 'A man with a good story is practically a king.' If this is true, then Agualusa can count himself among the continent's new royals

The book is a wonderful mix of life and dramas real and imagine worlds and how someone avoids madness just in more than thirty years apart from the real world…  This book shows why we maybe should be trying to get more books out of the Lusophone world.

WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD 2017 
 
A finalist for the Man Booker International Prize 2016 
 
The brilliant new novel from the winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. 
 
On the eve of Angolan independence, Ludo 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

Daniel Hahn

Agualusa consistently treats Angolan history and identity with the lyrical experimentalism and unabashed weirdness of the surrealist... he restores the vivifying potential of dreams as enablers of courage, conviction and transformation

While swimming in the clear blue waters of the Rainbow Hotel, Daniel Benchimol finds a waterproof camera, floating seemingly lost in the sea. He goes on to discover that the camera belongs to Moira, a Mozambican artist famous for a series of photos depicting her own dreams. On seeing the images, Daniel realises that Moira is also the mysterious woman whom he has been dreaming about repeatedly. The two meet, and Daniel becomes involved in a unusual dream experiment with a Brazilian neuroscientist, who's working with Moira on a machine to film and photograph people’s dreams. 
 
Meanwhile, Daniel’s daughter Karinguiri, one of Angola’s young dreamers, is arrested along with six friends for staging a protest during a presidential press conference in Luanda. The group go on hunger strike, attracting worldwide press attention, showing the power of young people when they raise their voices against the regime. 
 
The Society of Reluctant Dreamers is a surreal, vivid novel about the slipperiness of truth and reality, art versus dictatorship, courage versus fear, change and the old order, amidst the politics of Angola's tumultuous past, present and future.

José Eduardo Agualusa

Praise for The Society of Reluctant Dreamers

Agualusa consistently treats Angolan history and identity with the lyrical experimentalism and unabashed weirdness of the surrealist... he restores the vivifying potential of dreams as enablers of courage, convictio ...

Books by José Eduardo Agualusa

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