José Eduardo Agualusa Alves da Cunha (born December 13, 1960) is an Angolan journalist and writer of Portuguese and Brazilian descent. He studied agronomy and silviculture in Lisbon, Portugal. Currently he resides in the Island of Mozambique, working as a writer and journalist. He also has been working to establish a public library on the island.
Agualusa writes predominantly in his native language, Portuguese. His books have been translated into twenty-five languages, most notably into English by translator Daniel Hahn, a frequent collaborator of his. Much of his writing focuses on the history of Angola.
He has seen some success in English-speaking literary circles, most notably for A General Theory of Oblivion. That novel, written in 2012 and translated in 2015, was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker International Prize, and was the recipient of the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award. (Wikipedia)
Agualusa and National Allegory
Doubling kickstarts a mechanism that generates uncountable multitudes, whose diverse multiplicity contrasts starkly with the image of one nation, one people.
Agualusa on Duplicity, Tribute, and Revenge
It may be nice to think we can reinvent ourselves, construct new pasts and precursors, and fiction encourages us in this fantasy. But there are scars that simply will not fade.
- Agualusa, José Eduardo. The Book of Chameleons. Trans. Daniel Hahn. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006.
- Agualusa, José Eduardo. The Society of Reluctant Dreamers. Trans. Daniel Hahn. Brooklyn, NY: Archipelago, 2020.
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- Agualusa, José Eduardo, and Daniel Hahn. “The Book of Chameleons.” The Book of Chameleons. By José Eduardo Agualusa. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006. 181-184.
- Borges, Jorge Luis. “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” “Death and the Compass,” “Ibn-Hakam al-Bokhari, Murdered in His Labyrinth,” and “Borges and I.” Collected Fictions. Trans. Andrew Hurley. London: Penguin, 1999. 68-81, 147-156, 255-262, 324.
- Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams: The Complete and Definitive Text. Trans. and ed. James Strachey. New York: Basic, 2010.
- Hahn, Daniel. “Translating Chameleons: Giving an African Reptile an English Voice.” Wasafiri 23.1 (March 2008): 17-21.
- Knop, Rita Maria, and Virgínia Carvalho de Assis Costa. “From Duplicity to the Double: Reading the Upside Down Embroidery in José Eduardo Agualusa’s The Book of Chameleons.” Acta Scientiarum: Language and Culture 34.1 (January-June 2013): 97-101.
- McGuirk, Bernard. “Intra-Colonialism or l’Animotion of the Black Atlantic: J. E. Agualusa’s O Vendedor de Passados.” Hispanic Research Journal 13.2 (April 2012): 165-87.
- Pittella, Flavia. “Agualusa: ‘Antes creía que la literatura podía delinear el futuro, ahoracomienzo a pensar que lo crea.’” Infobae (March 31, 2020).
The Book of Chameleons:
Félix Ventura’s garden features an avocado tree, medlar trees, and “at least ten papaya trees. Félix believes in the restorative powers of papaya” (10). He has “a glass of papaya juice” when he comes home in the afternoons, before sharing “the sunset rites” with the gecko (4). For dinner, he routinely has “a thick slice of papaya, dressed with lemon and a dash of port wine” (15), or alternatively a fruit shake made with papaya mixed up with “passion fruits, a banana, raisins, pine nuts, a soup-spoon of muesli (an English brand) and a strand of honey” (87). Papayas are native to Southern Mexico and Central America, but were brought to Europe by the Spanish in the sixteenth century and are now grown throughout the tropics; India is by some distance the world’s largest producer, followed by the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Mexico, and Indonesia. In short, it is a global (or rather, pantropical) fruit, much as Agualusa’s novels tend to trace connections and genealogies that tie Southern Africa both to the Americas (Brazil, Cuba, the USA) and to Europe (here, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland).
The Society of Reluctant Dreamers:
Hossi tells the story of a South African captain who steps on a landmine: “He asked for whisky, he liked whisky, but we didn’t have any whisky so I gave him a bit of Marufo wine, and he died smiling in my arms” (52). In the end, for all the social and psychic investment we place in what we consume and how we consume it, it may not matter much what we drink. The captain goes on to appear in Hossi’s dreams to say something similar about the arbitrariness of other social divisions, even those with the most lethal of consequences: “Oh, mate, mate, we’re killing with no reason at all, the people now sending us to our deaths are already preparing to switch sides.” Yet it is revealing that this argument can be read equally as hard-boiled cynicism (causes mean nothing) or as dreamlike utopianism (a fundamental brotherhood of man). There is a nihilism shadowing this fantasy. Perhaps we should think more about what we are drinking.
Agualusa Questions I
The following questions are taken from your blog posts…
On Dreams
Did the books concept of dreams fall in line with your own concept? Do you see people you know in your dreams? Have any of your dreams become real life? Do you believe that dreams have a practical function? Have you ever seen someone to help you decipher your dreams?
Why do you think it’s The Society of Reluctant Dreamers?
What do you think the dream machine signified? What was the point of the whole narrative to capture and record dreams?
How does dreams affect one’s life?
Question: On page 171, it is stated “it might be possible for us to remember future events, if they’re very important or very traumatic.” On a similar note, the book suggests that “foreshadowing dreams” can be true. Do you think this idea of a “foreshadowing dream” was mentioned in a literal way – as in, do you think the author actually believed this idea was plausible? Or did the author want to imply a parallel between dreams and literature, trying to suggest that literature can affect the future?
Do you feel that dreams always have deeper meanings?
If someone came up to you and offered to record your dreams for you and show them to you in the form of a short movie, would you do it?
What do you make of your dreams? Do you try to interpret them and find a deeper meaning or are they just completely random to you?
On Society
What benefits do you think having a Dream Lab in our society would be? How would it change our everyday life?
On Politics
Do you think the incorporation of dreams into this story offers an opportunity for censorship, or does it maybe offer a suggestion of utopia and dreaming of a better reality? How do you view these different storylines working together?
The “dreamers” of Agualusa’s book are not limited to those who experience premonitions and future events while they’re asleep, but also the idealists and liberals who dream of Angola becoming “a free, just, democratic country”, instead of one in which an authoritative government reigns and inequalities prevail in every nook and corner. My question is, whether you agree with my concluding observations or if you think the dreams served a different purpose altogether in the book?
What are some potential roles of postcolonialism and postmodernism in Angolans’ struggle for freedom as portrayed by Agualusa?
The question I now pose to you is about pacifism. Do you think it can only exist in fantasy? Or can it survive in our current world?
On the Characters
What was your favourite character and why? What dreams did you find most relatable?
Was there any one character in particular that you related to? Was there anything about their personality, passion, desire for justice, passiveness that was relatable? Also, as a more general question, what do you think are the purpose of dreams? Are you the type of person to forget them as soon as you wake up or the type of person to write dreams down every morning in a dream journal – and why?
What did you think of Moira and Daniel’s relationship?
Other
“Let us always remember that to dream is to look for ourselves” Bernardo Soares/ Fernando Pessoa. What does this quote mean to you? What do you think was the intention of the author of opening the book with it?
I noticed that the baobab tree is mentioned many times throughout the novel; this could be attributed to it simply being a part of the setting, but do you think it could represent something more? Does it symbolise anything?
What do you think is the purpose of Daniel and Moshe Dayan’s story?
Armando mentions that “people should only be allowed to marry when lucid” (11), do you agree with his belief that marrying someone when you’re in love with them is the same as drunk driving?
Did you feel that the different writing styles were easy to follow, or were you often confused on how the story shifted?
What did this story teach you about something you already knew?
Agualusa Questions II
- How would you characterize the relationship between Félix and the gecko?
- What is the effect of having a gecko as the novel’s narrator?
- Does it matter if we don’t pick up on the gecko’s literary former life?
- What is the place and function of dreams in this book?
- What does the novel have to say about memory?
- What does it have to say about the past and/or history?
- What does it have to say about fiction and lies?
- Do you prefer the English title (The Book of Chameleons) to the Portuguese (The Seller of Pasts)? Why or why not?
The following questions are taken from your blog posts…
On Truth and Deception
“Truth has a habit of being ambiguous too” (p 122). Referring to the title of this novel “chameleon”, who changes itself into their surroundings to get closer to their prey. What do you think this reflects about human life? Do we hide our identity for our benefits?
Reflecting on the novel as a whole, what insights have you gained about truth, deception, and the nature of reality? How has your perspective on these themes evolved throughout the story, and what questions or ideas will you continue to explore after finishing the book?
Do you think lies are an important part of our society? What do you think a world without lies would look like? Would it work?
My question for discussion is about Felix and his relationship with the gecko – do you think his dreams about the gecko being a human were purely fiction or was somehow the gecko influencing them?
“I don’t do things like that. I invent dreams for people, I’m not a forger” (p. 17). My question for discussion is how do you interpret the quote stated above? Do you think this is really true about Félix’s work?
On Identity
One of the main themes of this novel is identity, do you think that identity is fixed or ever-changing? Why do you think someone may ask Felix to change their identity? Under what circumstances would you consider changing your identity?
What do you think of the lives being lived by Buchmann/Gouveia? Which one would you consider to be his actual life? Is it possible that it is both of them? Why?
If you would want to be reincarnated, what “completely different” thing would you be. Also, why do you guys think Agualusa used a gecko out of all other lizards? Was there a reason Eulálio couldn’t be a legit chameleon?
Do you think you could live a life of lies successfully like Buchmann, act and talk like your other self? Furthermore, if you could change your past, what would you think you would’ve changed it to?
On the Past and History
If given the opportunity, would you want Félix Ventura to ‘alter’ your past? Why or why not? How do you think altering one’s past might impact one’s present and/or future?
If this ability to change your past, or remove parts of it, or buy a new one entirely, was real, would you change anything at all or would you not change a thing? Why or why not?
What does the past mean to you? If it were you, would you change your past? Why or why not?
Would you hire Felix to give you a new past?
Do you think parts of our history were constructed?
On Characters
Which character fascinated you the most? Why is that?
Who was your favourite character in the novel and why?
Do you think Felix made up or dreamt this whole story?
How does José Eduardo Agualusa use the character of the gecko to explore themes of identity and transformation?
On Dreams
Which one of the many dreams was your favourite? Why?
Would you rather have a beautiful dream instead of a painful memory?
What do you think the dreams symbolize?
On Lizards and other animals
How did you react to realizing that the narrator was a gecko? Did you find that it added to or took away from your enjoyment of the novel?
Why does this book have the gecko as the first narrator and not any other animal?
What animal would you want to be reincarnated into after you die?
On the Title
Does the title of a novel influence your understanding of a book? Would you have read this novel differently if it was called ‘The Seller of Pasts” compared to “The Book of Chameleons”?
What do you think of the title change? Do you prefer one over the other?
Other
Also just for fun, would you consider yourself an animist? I think I would call myself one!
Do you think you are a chameleon? What makes you think yes or no?
Do you think the man in the mask is someone we have been introduced to in the book? Or someone Eulalio must have known in his past life?
What’s the point of Eulalio being a former human?
To what extent does narrative influence the way characters perceive themselves and their place in the world?
What are your thoughts on the ending?
Did you also think buchmann and Ventura were the same person or did you interpret this differently?
Do you believe in reincarnation? Do you think we bring the memories of our past lives with us into our next life?
When Eulalio’s mom tells him that he should choose books over life because they contain sometimes more truth than reality, do we agree with that?
When the house is described as being alive in the beginning, is that because everything is a construct, or something else?
What do you think of José’s method for dealing with his trauma? In his situation, what would you do?
Could you see a connection to repressed memories and dreams? Do you think Félix could be acting this way out of a trauma response? Or am I being batshit crazy 🙁
