African Literature Book Club: Review of Neighbours – The Story of a Murder by Lilia Momple
Reading: Neighbours, The Story of a Murder By Lilia Momple
Penguin Classics, 130 pp, £9.99
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Readers: Alice, Elizabeth Angela, Karen, Ngozi, Minna and Ami
More info about Catch a Vibe’s Book Club
Interesting points on Mozambique
As it turns out none of us had much knowledge about Mozambique aside from Ami who has a friend with parents from the region. We all knew the geography of the region but not enough about its history. Thankfully our discussion took place in The Travel Bookshop where we could find a book on Mozambique We found out the following:
- Mozambique was colonized by the Portuguese in the 15th Century.
- Languages are: Tsonga, Portuguese and Swahili
- Mozambique shares its borders with Tanzania and Zimbabwe to its West and South Africa to its South.
- Independence from the Portuguese was gained in 1975 by the front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo). The novel is set around 1976.
- After independence the Portuguese population of Mozambique fled leaving the country to rebuild itself.
- The National Mozambique resistance group (Renamo) formed with external help from South Africa begins to destabilise the country’s progress after independence in a war which lasts for 17 years.
- The first multiparty vote in Mozambique was not held until 1994.
- The country has a racial mix of indigenous peoples, Portuguese and Indian migrants. Words like mesticos and cafusa (black and Indian or mulatto) denote people of particular mixed race heritage.
Symbolism and Structure
The novel takes place over the course of one evening in the city of Maputo. The lives of three different households; the home of Narguiss and her three daughters, the home of Leia and Januario with their new baby and the home of Mena and Dupont collide with tragic consequences.
Elizabeth: I love the way it’s constructed over the time span of one afternoon. It’s like a crime procedural. Great pacing and we are always in the middle of the action.
Alice: I definitely think that this book succeeds where Weep not Child failed, in showing the history of a country through a set of characters. There wasn’t much online about Lilia Momple (the author) but I read that she writes scripts for TV. I can really feel that in the book. The way that it has so many layers; it is very cinematic and could be easily adapted for the screen.
Minna: I think the characters were drawn really well and were symbolic of different things especially the three plotters who we now know are Renamo operatives and their reaction to independence. Romu had his issues with race, Zaliua wanted revenge against a system that had built him up only to pull him down, and then Dupont who just wanted everyone to see his worth.
Women and Power
For such a short novel Momple manages to populate her short novel with some heavy issues. We discussed her treatment of female characters and the racial make-up of Mozambique. In the character of Mena we saw someone who was seemingly in a weak position. Married to Dupont, a worthless husband who beats her whilst being forced to serve his leering, and scheming new acquaintances. However as her history is revealed she shows unshakable strength.
Ngozi: With each of the stories in the novel Lila Momple manages to show a female perspective in terms of their relationships with men and their families. She weaves a lot into such a short book. From my reading of it, it was about the lack of power for women even in the way women are described by the men in the novel as light skinned and even as meat at one point.
Elizabeth: Mena was a powerful character I thought. She is described so often as beautiful and self-possessed.
Karen: Dupont marries technically below him because he is Mauritan and she is mulatto, but she still has power, she’s always one step ahead of him.
Minna: She has a lot of power over him because he is obsessed with her. At one point all of his family is leaving for Portugal and she puts her foot down and will not leave…so he stays.
Alice: I found it interesting to compare Mena with Narguiss who is this weak woman in the story sitting at home preparing for Eid waiting for her husband to come home from his affair with this younger woman.
Angela: Yeah I think it was different then, there was no interest in female emancipation yet.
Alice: I think it’s the way things used to be it was all about family. It’s never about you, it’s about the family. You don’t really think about yourself and with [this character’s] second husband Abdul you see her doing the same thing. The affairs don’t matter as long as he comes home.
Shortcomings of the novel
Elizabeth: I could have read three times the size of this novel. To me it could have been a better version of the Brief and WondrousLlife of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz if Momple had explored all of the different storylines, especially if she had expanded the foot notes.
Alice: But then again Mozambique’s history is so complicated. What was disappointing in the book was the glossary. It didn’t explain the most important terms I thought it should have explained things like the different meanings of the words mulatto and mestico, for example, which is so much more important than what they are eating [the glossary contains a lot of culinary terms]. There was also a whole other story that she could have written about the people who left and went to Portugal because it seems that they all ended up doing illegal or criminal activities.
Angela: She definitely should have spoken about the characters’ relatives and their aspirations then it may have had a bit of similarity to On Black Sister Street by Chika Unigwe. That tale about the immigrants would have been great story to tell.
Ngozi: There should have been something about the people that were left behind after the painful tragedy at the end of the book. How does that feed into a new beginning? I was left thinking about how and why Momple chose a certain ending for some characters and leaving their families to fend for themselves in the end.
Verdict
Neighbours is a great introduction to African literature as it has a western storytelling style whilst introducing the reader to the main elements and themes surrounding African literature.
More literature from Mozambique:
Playing with Fire by Henry Mankell
Set in Mozambique, this moving novel tells the story of Sofia who faces her sister’s struggle with AIDS and her own disability after stepping on a landmine. Sequel to Secrets in the Fire
A River Called Time by Mia Couto
Mariano, who has lived in the city from an early age, is summoned back to his village to attend his grandfather’s funeral. But, when he arrives, he discovers two things: firstly, that he has been nominated by his grandfather to take over the running of the family affairs, secondly that his grandfather has not died completely, but is in that frontier space between life and death.
The Word Tree by Teolinda Gersao (Dedalus Africa)
Set largely in Lourenço Marques, as the capital of Mozambique was known before it achieved independence from its colonial masters in Portugal, this is a novel very much about divisions between mother and daughter, husband and wife, black and white, Africa and Portugal, the haves and the havenots and about what it means to be an immigrant, always torn between home and homeland.
This book club meeting took place at The Travel Bookshop, 13-15 Blenheim Crescent, Notting Hill, London W11 2EE
The Travel Bookshop boasts a great collection of black writing, as well as travel guides to the African continent.
