The Society of Reluctant Dreamers

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title The Society of Reluctant Dreamers
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Jose Eduardo Agualusa
Translated by Daniel Hahn
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:288
Dimensions(mm): Height 216,Width 135
Category/GenreModern and contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
ISBN/Barcode 9781787300552
ClassificationsDewey:869.342
Audience
General

Publishing Details

Publisher Vintage Publishing
Imprint Harvill Secker
Publication Date 29 August 2019
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

The new novel from the winners of the International DUBLIN Literary Award 2017, Jose Eduardo Agualusa and his translator Daniel Hahn. While swimming in the clear blue waters of the Rainbow Hotel, Daniel Benchimol finds a waterproof camera, floating seemingly lost in the sea. He goes on to discover that the camera belongs to Moira, a Mozambican artist famous for a series of photos depicting her own dreams. On seeing the images, Daniel realises that Moira is also the mysterious woman whom he has been dreaming about repeatedly. The two meet, and Daniel becomes involved in a unusual dream experiment with a Brazilian neuroscientist, who's working with Moira on a machine to film and photograph people's dreams. Meanwhile, Daniel's daughter Karinguiri, one of Angola's young dreamers, is arrested along with six friends for staging a protest during a presidential press conference in Luanda. The group go on hunger strike, attracting worldwide press attention, showing the power of young people when they raise their voices against the regime. The Society of Reluctant Dreamers is a surreal, vivid novel about the slipperiness of truth and reality, art versus dictatorship, courage versus fear, change and the old order, amidst the politics of Angola's tumultuous past, present and future.

Author Biography

Jose Eduardo Agualusa (Author) Jose Eduardo Agualusa was born in Huambo, Angola, and is one of the leading literary voices in Angola and the Portuguese-speaking world. His novel Creole was awarded the Portuguese Grand Prize for Literature, The Book of Chameleons won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and A General Theory of Oblivion won the DUBLIN Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.

Reviews

Agualusa consistently treats Angolan history and identity with the lyrical experimentalism and unabashed weirdness of the surrealist... he restores the vivifying potential of dreams as enablers of courage, conviction and transformation * The Arts Desk *