ABSTRACT

Mia Couto was born in Beira, Mozambique, in 1957, the son of Portuguese immigrants. His father was a journalist in search of more opportunities, and his mother was an orphan. Upon arrival, his father was shocked by the social inequalities and abuses in Mozambique, and although Mia Couto grew up in a more privileged situation in Mozambique, he was conscious that the world around him was not how it should be. In the schools he attended while growing up, there were very few blacks, and his teachers did what they could to keep the blacks in their place. He says that it was Europe inside his house, but Africa in the streets. Mia Couto, on the one hand, describes Beira as very volatile because of the barriers between the whites and the blacks. But he also speaks of the city in idyllic tones, talking about his childhood as a time in which he mixed freely with blacks, spoke the African language Sena, and attended storytelling sessions. In this environment of tension and opportunity, Couto grew up with both a regard for mankind and a love of literature.