The Last Flight of the Flamingo

'To put it bluntly and crudely, this is what happened: a severed penis was found, right there, on the main road just outside Tizangara'The bizarre discovery of the severed penis is a fitting start to the magical-realist The Last Flight of the Flamingo by Mia Couto. Couto, one of the best African writers of our time, unfolds a mysterious story about an investigation into the settlement of the Mozambican civil war. He weaves elements from the African oral tradition, magical realism and the raw geopolitical reality into a masterful novel with an astonishing poetic power of expression. A blundering bureaucrat, his self-absorbed wife, the village prostitute, they are the inhabitants of the village where the Western security officer Massimo Risi comes to do his investigation into landmines. His guide and interpreter manages to collect a lot of witness statements and taped interviews in the village. However, Risi is unable to reconstruct a reliable image of reality from the often surreal, superstition-coloured testimonies. Couto phenomenally demonstrates how cultural differences and divergent interests can lead to radically different perspectives on one and the same event. The Last Flight of the Flamingo is a striking but disturbing portrait of postcolonial Africa, captured in unforgettable language.