Paradise and Other Hells - José Eduardo Agualusa

José Eduardo Agualusa is the kind of man who asks Siri if she believes in God and connects her second response (because why would you accept the first?) to a question he is asked about which Portuguese is his Portuguese. This capacity for weaving seemingly disparate threads into fascinating texts lies at the heart of Agualusa’s work as both journalist and novelist. In Paradise and Other Hells, we see both sides come together, humanised further by touches of the mundane: a father marvelling at the wonder of his daughter’s hair, the absolute logic of his son’s naïveté; an older man musing about ageing and funerals. Whether riffing on Jorge Luis Borges and his relationship with time, dissecting the political landscape of Angola, unpacking Fernando Pessoa’s casual racism, reflecting on the theory of dreams; or in awe at the beauty of Mozambique Island (where he lives), examining the influence of Africa and Brazil on contemporary Portuguese language, this is a book that reveals a mind constantly at work, a pen always at play with language, and it fizzes with Agualusa’s trademark humour and proboscis-sharp observation. Blending excerpts from his diary with columns published in the press, this is an intricate book that still allows for stop-start reading. In the short article, God is Sick, José Eduardo Agualusa asserts that ”people who are sure that their beliefs are based in good sense are open to disc
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