Synopsis from Amazon.com and Wikipedia

“Brilliant . . . harrowing. . . . Packs the impact of an exploding mortar shell.”―
Kai Maristed, Los Angeles Times

In the tradition of William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez, one of the twentieth century’s most original literary voices offers “kaleidoscopic visions of a modern Portugal scarred by its Fascist past and its bloody colonial wars in Africa” (Paris Review). Hailed as a masterpiece of world literature, The Land at the End of the World―in an acclaimed translation by Margaret Jull Costa―recounts the anguished tale of a Portuguese medic haunted by memories of war. Like the Ancient Mariner who will tell his tale to anyone who listens, the narrator’s evening unfolds like a fever dream that is both tragic and haunting. The result is one of the great war novels of the modern age.

It reflects the personal experience of Lobo Antunes as an army doctor sent to Angola during the Portuguese Colonial War. Throughout the book, the reader assumes the position of "interlocutor" to the protagonist, who finds an Angola degraded by colonial conflict, the "unbelievable absurdity of war." The novel touches on several themes: the numberless casualties of war (ignored by the state), disregard for the lives of the innocent (the poor children of Angola and the miserable conditions in which they lived), the protagonist's distance from home, his loss of family ties and fear of death, but above all the nightmarish conditions of colonial occupation and civil war.

This novel was the author's second and in 1987 earned him a prize from the French Embassy in Lisbon. Also its one of my favorites in portuguese literature.

Ed W. W. Norton & Company, ed 2011

Sent to azuki as RABCK to remember her trip to Portugal this year .Thanks azuki

Editing: Tellastory's bookstore is a blue minivan walking around Lisbon and also a nice place for a photo :) Only has books from portuguese writers translated in english and other languages.The booksellers are nice and like to talk about the books .

Thank you so much Joaquim for this book, not to mention your kind hospitality and delicious dinner. I am not familiar with the book nor the author, but reading the sypnosis it sounds like an amazing book.

The books came in a bag from Tellastory.pt. It's a really interesting site, apparently a mobile bookstore.

ONCE UPON A TIME
THERE WAS A COUNTRY BORN WITH THE GIFT OF WRITING,
AN AUTHOR THAT WANTED TO TELL A STORY, A BOOK THAT WANTED TO BE READ,
A TOURIST THAT DID NOT SPEAK PORTUGUESE,
AND A BOOK SHOP THAT DID NOT KNOW HOW TO REMAIN IN THE SAME PLACE.
ALL OF THEM JOINED TOGETHER. AND WROTE

A NEW STORY.

ONCE UPON A TIME

THERE WAS A SMALL COUNTRY THAT SAILED THE SEVEN SEAS
IN ITS BRAVE MARITIME EXPLORATION. IN ITS CARAVELS, PORTUGAL TOOK CULTURE
AND ITS LANGUAGE AND BROUGHT STORIES.
WITH A FEATHER, A FOUNTAIN PEN OR A BALLPOINT, AT A
TYPEWRITER OR AT A COMPUTER,
PORTUGUESE AUTHORS
HAVE CENTURIES OF WRITTEN PAGES
THAT WANT TO BE TOLD.

Tell a Story is a book shop that sells translated Portuguese literary pieces, so as to make literature known as a "postcard" of our culture. Because we believe there's no better way to remember a journey than a book. And that nothing makes one travel more than reading.

What a lovely idea!! I am not sure where to look for the bookstore though...

Muito obrigada!!

I read this for the Eurovisionathon for the country of Portugal.

This book is a rather slow read, as at times a sentence can take up half a page, and once in a while, over one page long, Proust style. Sometimes this building up results in a powerful sentence, but just as often I got totally lost in the rambling.

Some of his sentences are brilliant and vivid, worthy of one considered among the best Portuguese authors, especially with the use of original similes, and he likes similes A LOT.

-"(Gago Coutinho) consisted of a nipple of dusty red earth between two desolate plains"
- "in my city castrated by the police and by censorship"
- "barbers performing ballets of fleeting gestures behind the meek heads of their customers"
- "breasts emerge like moons from clothes, round, white, soft, opaline, with a warm inner light of veins and milk, rising above the city of my body in slow triumph"
- "the war that was urinating on us with its shrapnel and its bullets"
- "stiff-backed chairs like unmatched pairs of quadrupeds randomly grazing the worn fringes of rugs".

But there are also lines like "making love to one another, as furiously as rhinoceroses with toothaches" "(stray cats') eyes dripping the green milk of distrust" "the eyes of the drummers looked like phosphorescent boiled eggs, with no pupils, lit by the grass bonfires intended to stretch the skins for the drums or by the buttocks that swayed, suspended in the void, like the lights of a train moving off." Lines that leave me with some weird images, disjointed and unhelpful to the narrative.

Thanks again Joaquim for introducing me to this author. I've read Saramango but Antunes is new to me. I can't say I love this one but it's a nice introduction. I wonder if Tellastory is still around - I am afraid not as their website is gone.

I truly hope that later this year we will meet you in Lisbon again, when we travel, it has been such a long time.

I think this will be a nice addition to the box, introducing readers to authors beyond the more common European countries such as France or Italy.
Thanks again Joaquim for the book, I look forward to seeing you again in Lisbon!

Chose from the "Around the World Bookbox #2."