Mia Couto, "The Marine House" (trans. David Brookshaw) (Mozambique)

It’s December 9. Welcome back to the 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar—a literary globetrotting adventure featuring 25 stories from 25 different countries.

Our editor, Alberto Manguel, is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

Here he is on Mia Couto’s story, “The Marine House”:

In 2009, the Mozambican writer Mia Couto published a collection of stories under the title Tales of the Birth of the Land. Written in the image-filled voices of the people of the island—like that of the old madman Tiane Kumadzi—these short stories chronicle the relationship of Mozambique with the sea and the sky, “the nostalgia that the fish feels for the cloud.” Also the land: according to Mia Couto, “We don’t lack the light of the sun [...] we lack knowledge of the birth of the land.” Halfway between fables and fairy tales, Mia Couto’s stories lend a new mythology to the island in the shadow of its colonial past.

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What did you think of today's story? Use the hashtag #ssac2021 on Twitter and Instagram to check in with your fellow advent calendarians. And check back tomorrow for commentary on the next story!