Two new titles from Lusophone Africa

Two books, written at the height of the armed struggle against Portugal in Angola and Mozambique and previously unpublished are being published in the three countries.

Poemas da Prisão (Prison Poems) is a posthumous collection from José Craveirinha. It will bring together 54 poems written when the poet, who died in a Johannesburg hospital earlier this year, was imprisoned by the Portuguese secret police. Between 1965 and 1969 Craveirinha was imprisoned in Machava maximum security prison in Maputo by PIDE.

The book (only available in Portuguese) is expected to be released in June and will be published in Portugal by Caminho and in Mozambique by Ndjira.

On the other side of the continent, the Angolan Luandino Vieira has published a novel, more than 20 years after his last book was published. Nosso Musseque (Our Shanty Town). The book recreates the life of a Luanda shanty town in the 1950s, which has been the theme of Vieira's other works.

Nosso Musseque was published in April in Angola and released in Portugal, by Caminho, and in Mozambique, by Ndjira, in May.