When Did I Become a Writer? | Mia Couto | Granta Magazine

When Did I Become a Writer?

Mia Couto

Translated by Zoë Perry

‘I am often asked when I became a writer, and I have taken to not rushing my answer.’

Mia Couto

Mia Couto is a writer and journalist born in Beira, Mozambique in 1955. He has published over twenty books, including Terra Sonâmbula (Sleepwalking Land), O Último Voo do Flamingo (The Last Flight of the Flamingo), A Varanda do Frangipani (Under the Frangipani) and Jesusalém (The Tuner of Silences), which was longlisted for the 2015 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

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Translated by Zoë Perry

Zoë Perry is a Canadian–American translator who has translated work by several contemporary Brazilian authors, including Emilio Fraia, Clara Drummond, and Carol Bensimon. Her translations have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Astran+1 and the Paris Review. Zoë was awarded a PEN/Heim grant for her translation of Veronica Stigger’s Opisanie Swiata and her translation of Ana Paula Maia’s Of Cattle and Men received an English PEN Translates award.

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