Bay Of Tigers | Granta

  • Published: 18/03/2004
  • ISBN: 9781862076488
  • 129x30mm
  • 321 pages

Bay Of Tigers

Pedro Rosa Mendes

Translated by Clifford E. Landers

Bay of Tigers is an extraordinary account of Pedro Rosa Mendes’s journey across Africa in 1997 – 6000 miles from the west to the east coast, from Angola to Mozambique – on trains with no windows, no doors, no seats, on wrecks of trucks and buses, on boats and motorcycles. In war-torn Angola, a country where the landmines outnumber the people, Mendes finds long lines of villagers waiting for shock treatment to neutralize the phantom pain in amputated limbs, an apothecary’s tent purveying boiled mucumbi bark to combat scurvy lesions in the mouth, and trains crowded with people eating salted fish and drinking beer, swapping tales of local sorcerers who can turn into snakes. He interviews international relief workers and corrupt local officials, widows and orphans, soldiers and survivors, piecing together a rich portrait.

The Author

Born in 1968, Pedro Rosa Mendes is a Portuguese journalist. In 2000 he was awarded the prize for the Best Novel by the Pen Club of Portugal and the Literature Prize of Cascais.

More about the author →

Pedro Rosa Mendes on Granta.com

Essays & Memoir | The Online Edition

Terminus

Pedro Rosa Mendes

‘We hope that the copilot knows the terrain well. That his mask of youth conceals the face of a seasoned veteran of war. That he knows the minefields because he helped plant them.’