Novel
Balada de amor ao vento
Not translated into English
Paulina Chiziane · 1990
Synopsis
Sarnau tells of her youth in Mambone, in southern Mozambique. As an adolescent, she falls in love with Mwando, a pupil of the fathers who was meant for the priesthood; but he refuses polygamy and leaves her for the wife his family chooses for him. Chosen next by Queen Rassi to marry her son Nguila, heir to the throne of the Zucula, she is given thirty-six cows as a dowry and becomes his first wife, before discovering what it costs to share her husband with those who follow her.
Context
The novel appeared in 1990. Its author had given stories to the press before turning to the long form, and here she takes up the manner of the storytellers. The first-person narrative focuses on the lobolo, the bride-price in cattle that the groom's family pays to the bride's, and on polygamy in the south of the country in colonial times. The book was reissued in Lisbon by Caminho in 2003, then in Brazil; a French translation appeared in 2025.
Who it is for
In Portuguese, translated into French. The narrative goes through the lobolo and the rules of polygamous marriage, which it does not stop to explain.
Prizes and reception
First novel published by a woman in Mozambique; studies read it together with the author's later books, which take up the same South and the same questions.
Sources for this page 5
The pages consulted to check this page.