I am not sure I have read any African literature before so Sleepwalking Land by Mia Couto is not a bad place to start. The story centres on a small boy and an old man who are fleeing the war in Mozambique. They take shelter in a burnt-out bus and among the bodies they find the notebooks of one of the passengers.

The boy starts reading the notebooks to the old man and the book interchanges between the content of the notebook and what the other characters are doing. It all starts off OK, but the events in each world seem to get more and more unreal as the book progresses as if everything is in a dream.

The book is very well written, being tranlated to English from the original Portuguese and has some great pearls of wisdom and insights to life. I would not whole heartedly recommend the book, but I wouldn’t say it should be avoided either. If you are new to African literature and want something a little different, then this is the book for you.