From Angola, a country riddled with civil war and it’s aftereffects for the last 30 years, comes a surprising story of hope, passion, and magical realism from a groundbreaking, young African novelist. A young man arrives at the church of a small African village and starts whistling so beautifully that the priest is left in tears. As his weeklong stay continues, the whistler finds himself affected by the colorful inhabitants of the village as they all become bewitched and surrender to the moods of his melodies.

The Whistler

Science Fiction & Fantasy

ONDJAKI

Fantasy

Aflame Books

A Beautiful Darkness

Teen & Young Adult

Historical Fiction

Unruly/Enchanted Lion

A blackout leads two teens to discover the intimacy and vulnerability that can only be shared in darkness in Our Beautiful Darkness, a fully illustrated YA novella from celebrated Angolan author Ondjaki and illustrator António Jorge Gonçalves. Translated from Portuguese by Lyn Miller-Lachmann The light goes out suddenly. And in this absence of light, a pair of teenagers bare their souls. Into the warm silence of the night, they share a conversation filled with their stories and dreams... and maybe even a first kiss. Set against the backdrop of the civil war that ravaged Angola in the 1990s, this book weaves the country's history with a teenage boy's family stories. But when a power outage shrouds the neighborhood in darkness, everyday realities fade away... As the boy and a girl sit talking in the backyard, memory gives way to imagination and vulnerability, and the space between them becomes charged with emotional electricity. Their resulting conversation is both a meditation on the storytelling impulse and a gripping narrative of first love that, through its particulars, ascends to the universal.

Our Beautiful Darkness

NOMINATED FOR THE 2019 BEST TRANSLATED BOOK AWARD 
 A VANITY FAIR HOT TYPE BOOK FOR APRIL 2018 
 A VULTURE MUST-READ TRANSLATED BOOK FROM THE PAST 5 YEARS 
 A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF 2018 
 A LIT HUB FAVOURITE BOOK OF THE YEAR 
 A WORLD LITERATURE TODAY NOTABLE TRANSLATION OF 2018
 In a crumbling apartment block in the Angolan city of Luanda, families work, laugh, scheme, and get by. In the middle of it all is the melancholic Odonato, nostalgic for the country of his youth and searching for his lost son. As his hope drains away and as the city outside his doors changes beyond all recognition, Odonato’s flesh becomes transparent and his body increasingly weightless. A captivating blend of magical realism, scathing political satire, tender comedy, and literary experimentation, Transparent City offers a gripping and joyful portrait of urban Africa quite unlike any before yet published in English, and places Ondjaki, indisputably, among the continent’s most accomplished writers.

Transparent City (Biblioasis International Translation Series, 22)

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Biblioasis

In a crumbling apartment block in the Angolan city of Luanda, families work, laugh, scheme, and get by. In the middle of it all is the melancholic Odonato, nostalgic for the country of his youth and searching for his lost son. As his hope drains away and as the city outside his doors changes beyond all recognition, Odonato’s flesh becomes transparent and his body increasingly weightless.\nA captivating blend of magical realism, scathing political satire, tender comedy, and literary experimentation, Transparent City offers a gripping and joyful portrait of urban Africa quite unlike any before yet published in English, and places Ondjaki, indisputably, among the continent’s most accomplished writers

Transparent City

Contemporary

Europa Editions (UK) Ltd

Luanda, Angola, 1990. Ndalu is a normal twelve-year old boy in an extraordinary time and place. Like his friends, he enjoys laughing at his teachers, avoiding homework and telling tall tales. But Ndalu's teachers are Cuban, his homework assignments include writing essays on the role of the workers and peasants, and the tall tales he and his friends tell are about a criminal gang called Empty Crate which specializes in attacking schools. Ndalu is mystified by the family servant, Comrade Antonio, who thinks that Angola worked better when it was a colony of Portugal, and by his Aunt Dada, who lives in Portugal and doesn't know what a ration card is. In a charming voice that is completely original, Good Morning Comrades tells the story of a group of friends who create a perfect childhood in a revolutionary socialist country fighting a bitter war. But the world is changing around these children, and like all childhood's Ndalu's cannot last. An internationally acclaimed novel, already published in half a dozen countries, Good Morning Comrades is an unforgettable work of fiction by one of Africa's most exciting young writers.

Good Morning Comrades (Biblioasis International Translation Series, 2)

BY THE WINNER OF THE 2013 JOSÉ SARAMAGO PRIZE AN AFRICA39/UNESCO CITY OF LITERATURE 2014 TOP AFRICAN WRITER UNDER 40 A GUARDIAN TOP FIVE AFRICAN WRITER, 2012 WINNER OF THE GRINZANE PRIZE FOR BEST YOUNG WRITER, 2010 By the beaches of Luanda, the Soviets are building a grand mausoleum in honour of the Comrade President. Granmas are whispering: houses, they say, will be dexploded, and everyone will have to leave. With the help of his friends Charlita and Pi (whom everyone calls 3.14), and with assistance from Dr. Rafael KnockKnock, the Comrade Gas Jockey, the amorous Gudafterov, crazy Sea Foam, and a ghost, our young hero must decide exactly how much trouble he’s willing to face to keep his Granma safe in Bishop’s Beach. Energetic and colourful, impish and playful, Granma Nineteen and the Soviet’s Secret is a charming coming-of-age story from the next rising star in African literature.

Granma Nineteen and the Soviet's Secret (Biblioasis International Translation Series, 12)

A Vanity Fair Hot Type Book for April 2018 
A Globe and Mail Best Book of 2018 
A Lit Hub Favourite Book of the Year 
In a crumbling apartment block in the Angolan city of Luanda, families work, laugh, scheme, and get by. In the middle of it all is the melancholic Odonato, nostalgic for the country of his youth and searching for his lost son. As his hope drains away and as the city outside his doors changes beyond all recognition, Odonato's flesh becomes transparent and his body increasingly weightless. 
A captivating blend of magical realism, scathing political satire, tender comedy, and literary experimentation, Transparent City offers a gripping and joyful portrait of urban Africa quite unlike any before yet published in English, and places Ondjaki, indisputably, among the continent's most accomplished writers.

Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio

Die Durchsichtigen

Wunderhorn

O Voo Do Golfinho

Companhia das Letrinhas

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Books by ONDJAKI

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by ONDJAKI. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Whistler

A Beautiful Darkness

Our Beautiful Darkness

Transparent City (Biblioasis International Translation Series, 22)

Transparent City

Good Morning Comrades (Biblioasis International Translation Series, 2)

Granma Nineteen and the Soviet's Secret (Biblioasis International Translation Series, 12)

Transparent City

Die Durchsichtigen

O Voo Do Golfinho