Transparent City

“A blend of stylized surrealism and harrowing realism.”—LitHub

"A moving mural of lives in the underclass of Luanda." –The Guardian

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 the city outside his doors changes beyond all recognition, Odonato’s flesh becomes transparent and his body increasingly weightless.

Alongside, disparate stories are woven into the narrative, spanning from the tragic to the comic, from the surreal to the every-day, culminating into a depiction of near-future Luanda. 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 among the continent’s most accomplished writers.

NOMINATED FOR THE 2019 BEST TRANSLATED BOOK AWARD

A VANITY FAIR HOT TYPE BOOK FOR APRIL 2018

A VULTURE MUST-READ TRANSLATED BOOK

A LIT HUB FAVOURITE BOOK OF THE YEAR

A WORLD LITERATURE TODAY NOTABLE TRANSLATION OF 2018

Contributor: Stephen Henighan (Translated by)

Translator: Stephen Henighan

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