The first in a trilogy about the last emperor of southern Mozambique by one of Africa's most important writers
Southern Mozambique, 1894. Sergeant Germano de Melo is posted to the village of Nkokolani to oversee the Portuguese conquest of territory claimed by Ngungunyane, the last of the leaders of the state of Gaza, the second-largest empire led by an African. Ngungunyane has raised an army to resist colonial rule and with his warriors is slowly approaching the border village. Desperate for help, Germano enlists Imani, a fifteen-year-old girl, to act as his interpreter. She belongs to the VaChopi tribe, one of the few who dared side with the Portuguese. But while one of her brothers fights for the Crown of Portugal, the other has chosen the African emperor. Standing astride two kingdoms, Imani is drawn to Germano, just as he is drawn to her. But she knows that in a country haunted by violence, the only way out for a woman is to go unnoticed, as if made of shadows or ashes.
Alternating between the voices of Imani and Germano, Mia Couto's Woman of the Ashes combines vivid folkloric prose with extensive historical research to give a spellbinding and unsettling account of war-torn Mozambique at the end of the nineteenth century.

Mia Couto; Translated from the Portuguese by David Brookshaw

CONTENTS
Introductory Note ix
1. Unearthed Stars 3
2. The Sergeant's First Letter 16
3. The Soil's Page 22
4. The Sergeant's Second Letter 34
5. The Sergeant Who Listened to Rivers 40
6. The Sergeant's Third Letter 50
7. On Bats' Wings 56
8. The Sergeant's Fourth Letter 66
9. Message from the Dead, Silence from the Living 71
10. The Sergeant's Fifth Letter 83
11. The Sin of the Moths 90
12. The Sergeant's Sixth Letter 99
13. Between Oaths and Promises 104
14. The Sergeant's Seventh Letter 115
15. A King Made Dust 119
16. The Sergeant's Eighth Letter 126
17. A Lightning Flash from the Soil 134
18. The Sergeant's Ninth Letter 146
19. White Horses, Black Ants 150
20. The Sergeant's Tenth Letter 165
21. A Brother Fashioned from Ash 170
22. The Sergeant's Eleventh Letter 191
23. A Wingless Bat 199
24. The Sergeant's Twelfth Letter 208
25. Lands, Wars, Burials, and Banishments 212
26. The Sergeant's Thirteenth Letter 226
27. Hands in Flight 234
28. The Sergeant's Last Letter 246
29. A Road Made of Water 250