For true reconciliation, we must first discuss the past: Agualusa

THE PUNCH: A General Theory of Oblivion, which fetched you the International Literary Dublin award, is a novel based on the real-life experiences of Ludovica Fernandes Mano, a Portuguese expatriate who bricks herself into a penthouse apartment in Luanda, the Angolan capital. In your note, you write that the novel grew out of your efforts to write the screenplay for a feature film based on Ludovica’s story. Tell us about the trigger and the process to turn her story into a novel.

JOSÉ EDUARDO AGUALUSA: The novel is a work of pure fiction. The idea came to me during a time when I lived in Luanda, and I spent a lot of time in an apartment quite similar to the one I describe in the book. It was an apartment in a building that in colonial times belonged to the upper bourgeoisie, but which after the independence had been occupied by people from the ghetto/musseques. Later, with the end of the socialist period, the building was recovered and the rich returned. I lived in the apartment in a period of transition: there were already very rich people in some of these apartments. In others, however, poor families still lived with pigs and chickens. It was a period of great political intolerance. As a journalist and writer I was under constant pressure. I began to wonder what my life would be like if I did not go out on the street again. It was then that this character was created, this Portuguese woman, who, after arriving in Luanda, just before the independence, witnessed the beginning of the civil war and, terrified by the events, decided to barricade herself inside her own apartment. I told the story to a friend of mine, a film director, who asked me to write a script, which I did. He, however, never got funding to make the film. So, years later, I decided to write a novel from the script.

THE PUNCH: The novel is divided into standalone chapters. How did you settle on its structure?

JOSÉ EDUARDO AGUALUSA: I never know what will happen when I start writing a novel. I write to know what will happen. Usually the characters are the ones that build the story. Thus, the structure is developing along with the novel. I create a structure that can support the plot, not the other way around. Of course, as I advance I am also forced to retreat, in order to rewrite the whole story. In regards to this novel things were a little different because I already had the script. I created the structure from this script. In the book, the character is writing her story on the walls of the apartment. As space narrows, since it is limited, she improves her writing, tries to save on the use of adjectives, tries to say the most with the least of words. I tried to do the same in the book.

THE PUNCH: The novel, like many of your previous works, deals with the history of your native Angola, a former Portuguese colony, through the War of Independence (1961-1974) and the civil war that followed (1975-2002). “If I still had the space, the charcoal, and available walls,” Ludo says somewhere in the novel, “I could compose a great work about forgetting: a general theory of oblivion.” While Ludo is intent on forgetfulness, the novel itself is an act of memory, of remembrance. Did you set out to make it a story about a nation struggling to stay rooted as violence threatens to tear it apart?

JOSÉ EDUARDO AGUALUSA: In countries like Angola, which have gone through serious conflicts, and in particular civil wars, there are always two theses: one says that in order to overcome pain and achieve reconciliation, it is necessary to forget. The other says that, on the contrary, we must remember. I defend the second alternative. I believe that in order to achieve genuine reconciliation, we must first discuss the past. We may possibly cry together to mourn together. My work as a writer is also that of remembering and trying to broaden the debate.

THE PUNCH: Where did Luanda, which transforms itself from a city in the throes of a revolution to one in civil war and then capitalism, figure in the wider scheme of the narrative?

JOSÉ EDUARDO AGUALUSA: Luanda may be the central character of the book. Luanda is a difficult city to love. On one hand, it has a very interesting, already relatively long history, of crossroads of cultures. A city that has managed to create an urban tradition, but where, nevertheless, elements of the rural world persist, concretely a whole living mythology. On the other hand, it is an aggressive, noisy, hard city that does not seem to stop for a moment. For a writer, it’s a spring of great stories. 

THE PUNCH: There is a great deal of influence of Latin American writers on your writing. Tell us about this influence.

JOSÉ EDUARDO AGUALUSA: I have a Brazilian grandfather. Brazilian culture, in particular literature, has always been part of my life. Brazil, moreover, is a country that was built in parallel with Angola. Angola gave birth to Brazil. Brazil gave birth to Angola. The Portuguese language of Angola is very close to that of Brazil, because Brazilians assimilated thousands of words with an African origin. Also the Brazilian popular culture, essentially of African origin, is very close to the Angolan one. The first time I read a Brazilian author, Jorge Amado, it was as if I were entering a world that was already mine. 

THE PUNCH: You started your journey as a writer writing poetry. How has poetry shaped and coloured your stories and novels? How often do you write poetry these days?

JOSÉ EDUARDO AGUALUSA: I’m a great reader of poetry. I’m moved to poetry. I read poetry in order to write fiction. So part of my fiction is poetry itself. 

THE PUNCH: In your stories, you tend to be more inclined towards the outlandish. Where do you look for inspiration? As a writer what role do you foresee for yourself?

JOSÉ EDUARDO AGUALUSA: The stories come to me in a very natural way. In Luanda, all you have to do is open a door and a burst of stories come in. I also dream a lot: I dream of book titles, with dialogues, with characters and, often, with complete plots. Dreaming is part of my craft. 

THE PUNCH: Could you tell us some of Portuguese and Brazilian writers, both old and contemporary, who you look up to?

JOSÉ EDUARDO AGUALUSA: Eça de Queirós, Jorge Amado, Rubem Fonseca, Clarice Lispector. 

THE PUNCH: Africa has long been represented by Anglophone writers. And, therefore, it’s fascinating to see the works of writers writing in languages other than English. As the most distinctive voice among lusophone African writers, do you see yourself as a representative of a continent? Do you have any readership on mind?

JOSÉ EDUARDO AGUALUSA: I represent no one but myself. Sometimes I even have doubts about representing myself. For example, there are old texts in which I no longer recognize myself. The good news is that there are more and more voices appearing in Africa and they are all very different from one another. This diversity seems to me to be a sign of maturity. 

THE PUNCH: You have enjoyed a great creative relationship with your fine translator, Daniel Hahn, over the years. How involved are you in the process of translation? He also translated your novel, The Book of Chameleons, which won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Tell us about his familiarity with the landscape of your writing and his felicity and flair as a translator.

JOSÉ EDUARDO AGUALUSA: A translator is a kind of co-author of a book. I’m so lucky to have a partner like Daniel — a great writer. I usually read the originals after they’ve been translated. We look together for certain solutions. I think he gets the toughest, which is to give the text a certain rhythm and melody. It’s something that I try to make happen in Portuguese. Curiously, already two composers, one Portuguese and one Brazilian, created songs from the opening phrases of two of my novels. This gave me great joy because it seems to demonstrate that the novels have rhythm and inner melody.

THE PUNCH: Tell us something about your passions other than reading and writing.

JOSÉ EDUARDO AGUALUSA: I have an enormous passion for photography and the fine arts in general.