His Portuguese parents settled in Mozambique in 1953 after fleeing the dictatorial rule of Antonio Salazar. Couto was born two years later in the port city of Beira. His first novel, Sleepwalking Land, was published in 1992. It’s a magical realist fantasy which draws its inspiration from Mozambique’s post-independence civil war, taking the reader through the brutal conflict which raged from 1977 to 1992 when Renamo – then a rebel movement backed by the white-minority regime in South Africa, and Western powers – fought Frelimo. The book was an immediate success. In 2001 it was described as one of the best 12 African books of the 20th Century by judges at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair, and has been translated into more than 33 languages.
