The Living and the Rest

A Financial Times Fiction in Translation Book of the Year and Winner of the Portuguese PEN Prize

A funny and lively tale about a group of writers stranded at a literary festival turns increasingly ominous as it explores the nature of life and of time, and the extraordinary power of imagination and the written word.

Writers from across Africa descend on the Isle of Mozambique to participate in the island's first literary festival. When a sudden cyclone strikes the land, they are cut off from the mainland.

One writer wakes from sleep with lines running through her head, reaching for a small red notebook with dream trash written on the cover. Another posts a picture of a writing desk gleaming in the ancient light of the Captains-General Palace, now a museum. The caption: "If I had a desk like this, I'm sure I'd write more. I'm sure I'd write better."

Agualusa traces their conversations as they wonder together whether the world they know has ended, and what, real or imagined, might come next. They talk, and set pens to paper, in this sometimes-surreal tale of how the physical world is changing rapidly around us and how we can (and must) forge new contexts.