”To put it crudely and rudely, here’s what happened: a severed penis was found right there on the trunk road outside of Tizangara.”

Now if that doesn’t pique our interest, what on Earth will?

We’re introduced to the Translator of Tizangara who relates a most peculiar tale of post-colonial politics, fettered national identity and some of the most bizarre situations since Kafka — though Couto’s idiosyncratic symbolism is often coupled with more reasonable explanation. Or is it?

Aside from the exploding UN soldiers (of whom all that remains are their severed manhoods), we have a narrator’s mother who is unable to see her son until she is on her deathbed, and a father, Sulpicio, who hangs up his bones on a tree before going to sleep.

Despite the quirky fable-like undertones to the book, all of the characters are detailed and convincing, from the self-important and time-spoiled Administrator of the town and his snivelling adjutant, to the as-bewildered-as-we-are investigator Massimo Riso and his guide and ours, the unnamed, passive interpreter who guides us through a firework trail of memorable faces and poetic imagery.

The author of this book renders sincerity without being patronising, and has managed to produce one of the most humanist works I have read.

’The Last Flight of the Flamingo’ is a political novel but, though it takes the author’s home-turf of Mozambique for its setting, his observations are far-reaching and, sadly, ever-more, rather than decreasingly, pertinent to us all.

The book contains a microcosm of the characters that make up this world, and Couto expertly sidesteps portraying stereotypical behaviour from his potentially stereotypical cast.

There are lines that are by turns deceptively simple, deceptively brilliant and simply deceptive. For example, the introduction to chapter 7:

- I miss my home back in Italy.

- I’d like a little place of my own too, where I could return to and feel cosy.

- Don’t you have one, Anna?

- I haven’t got one. None of us women have one.

- How come?

- You men come back home. We are the home.

There are a couple of instances of confusing language, but on the whole Couto’s writing is vividly bright and sparkles with intelligence. Especially, and unusually, in the dialogue. There is bona fide wisdom literally crammed into every nuance of conversation. Even the stupid characters seem to have a fundamental grasp on existence that we could only crave, or else shrug our shoulders and say, Good for them.

This book will entangle us in it, and it treats language as something fluid. It is intelligent without the usual cavalier cockiness and this is something to treasure. It can teach us new things and has the potential to make us reappraise. What more could we ask of it?

And when we finish this master-class in Confucian insight, we are left with thoughts of the Tamarind tree, such a potent symbol throughout the latter half of this short but dense fiction, and one of the numerous Tizangaran proverbs to accompany its image in our mind’s eye:

What flies after it has died?

It’s the leaf of a tree.

Neil Ayres was born in East London in 1979. He left school with a handful of GCSEs when he was 16 and has worked at times (and in no particular order) as a warehouseman, a cattery hand, a copy-shop assistant, a barman, a professional dog trainer and a cheap alternative to a computer database. He currently works in publishing. He lives on the Surrey/Sussex border in a house without a resident cat, though if there was one it could live without fear of being swung, as there’s not enough room to do such a thing. Neil is project manager for the ‘Book of Voices,’ an anthology of short stories due to be published by Flame Books in March 2005 in an attempt to raise awareness of the work of the Sierra Leone office of International PEN. Neil is also a member of Godisin, the first TTA writers’ workshop. In between all of the above, he is trying to get round to finishing his second novel and finding a decent agent. To read Neil’s story, ‘Changeling’ on the Showcase section of this site, click here or for more reviews by Neil, visit The New Review index here.

© 2004 Laura Hird All rights reserved.