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Home > Translation > The World Bookshelf > Books > A General Theory of Oblivion

A General Theory of Oblivion

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.

Author

José Eduardo Agualusa

José Eduardo Agualusa

Books

My Father's Wives

A General Theory of Oblivion

José Eduardo Agualusa was born in Huambo, Angola, in 1960, and is one of the leading young literary voices from Angola and from the Portuguese language. Arcadia was pleased to publish his Creole, awarded the Portuguese Grand Prize for Literature, as well as The Book of Chameleons, winner of the 2007 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Agualusa divides his time between Brazil, Angola, and Portugal.

Translator

Daniel Hahn

Daniel Hahn

Books

My Father's Wives

A General Theory of Oblivion

The Sorrows of Mexico

Resistance

Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor and translator with some forty books to his name. He has won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for his translation of The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa, and a Blue Peter Book Award for the first in his Ultimate Book Guides series of reading guides for children and teenagers.

A former chair of the Translators Association and national programme director of the British Centre for Literary Translation, he is chair of the Society of Authors and on the board of trustees of a number of organisations working with literature, literacy and free expression, including English PEN, Pop Up and Modern Poetry in Translation.

Published by

Harvill Secker, 2015
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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.

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