The Drinker of Horizons

January 30, 2023
Couto’s satisfying conclusion to his Sands of the Emperor trilogy (after The Sword and the Spear) finds 15-year-old series protagonist Imani pregnant and alone, and about to set sail with the Portuguese army to transport the recently captured king of Gaza, Ngungunyane, and other prisoners from Mozambique to Lisbon. Because Imani can speak Portuguese, she serves as translator for the soldiers and the prisoners, and as the lot travels from boat to boat and various ports, she bonds with one of Ngungunyane’s wives, Dabondi, while navigating squabbles among soldiers, an assassination plot cooked up by the prisoners, unwanted sexual advances, and Ngungunyane’s deteriorating sanity. Imani’s goal is to safely reach Lisbon before giving birth and to reunite with her lover and live as a family—though once the group reaches Portugal, they hear word of continued fighting in Mozambique. With the precocious Imani’s narration, Couto allows his protagonist’s fears and hopes to take center stage, though the occasional epistolary communications folded into the narrative tend to distract. Despite a jarring time jump in the final chapter, Couto succeeds in wrapping up each character’s story and in spotlighting the ravages of colonization. Series fans will enjoy this finale.

February 1, 2023
Couto's epic trilogy about colonial Mozambique concludes with a harrowing trek from the conquered land. The first book in Couto's Sands of the Emperor series, Woman of the Ashes (2018), turned on clashes between rival Mozambican tribes before Portuguese forces claimed power in the late 1800s; the second, The Sword and the Spear (2020), focused on the unlikely romance between Imani, a young Mozambican woman, and a Portuguese sergeant. In this story, the deposed emperor, Ngungunyane, is being forcibly removed along with his court from the country and into exile, paraded in public on their way. ("Portugal needed such a display in order to discourage new uprisings on the part of the Africans," Couto writes.) Imani, who's pregnant, is attempting to serve as a neutral translator on this trip, but she finds herself buffeted by competing interests--Ngungunyane wants to claim her as another one of his wives, seditionists want her complicity in undoing the Portuguese colonists' plans, and sailors subject her to various assaults, sexual and otherwise. There's a plainspokenness to the prose (via Brookshaw's translation) that belies the fact that, as in the prior two books, colonialism is a carnival of horrors, destroying families and wrecking folkways. The twist here, as the narrative makes its way to Lisbon, is that the degradations more fully expose the cruelty of Portugal's press, diplomatic corps, and royalty, as Ngungunyane's arrival provides an opportunity for moral posturing and power plays. Imani increasingly recognizes how untenable her position is: As her lover tells her, "The same narrative that paved the way for our encounter made our love impossible." And it's Imani and her child who fall under the greatest threat. The closing pages fast-forward the story into the 20th century and Mozambique's path to independence, ending the saga on a more positive note. But the scars are lasting. A careful and affecting conclusion to an ambitious saga.

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