Ondjaki
Entry updated 29 October 2021. Tagged: Author.
Pseudonym of Angolan author Ndalu de Almeida (1977- ), variously from the age of sixteen in Portugal and Brazil; active from around 2000. He is of sf interest (see Afrofuturism) for Os transparentes (2012; trans Stephen Henigah as Transparent City 2018), transfiguringly set in Near Future Luanda, which through governmental obliviousness and private-enterprise greed for oil has been set on fire. Ondjaki's rendering of the multifarious lives of his various protagonists itself transacts modes of telling from sf through Magic Realism (see Equipoise; Fantastika); and conspicuously recasts influences from authors like Franz Kafka. There are also some resemblances between his Luanda and Nnedi Okorafor's Lagos. At the heart of the tale looms the assortative Labyrinth of a half-ruined apartment tower transformed into a Keep; in this half-alive Edifice [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below], the large cast thrives, suffers, fantasticates. Flames initiate and conclude the tale. [JC]
Ndalu de Almeida
born Luanda, Angola: 5 July 1977
works (highly selected)
- Os transparentes (Luanda, Angola: Texto Editores, 2012) [binding unknown/]
- Transparent City (Windsor, Ontario: Biblioasis, 2018) [trans by Stephen Henighan of the above: pb/]
links
previous versions of this entry