My guest is the author of the book “Sonhos Manchados, Sonhos Vividos” (“Stained Dreams, Lived Dreams”). His name is Agnaldo Bata and he was distinguished with an honorable mention at the National Press Literary Casa da Moeda Eugénio Lisboa Award, in 2018. This award is an important incentive for promoting the talent of Mozambican authors, especially young ones, such as the winners: Pedro Pereira Lopes, Aurélio Furdela, Sérgio Raimundo, and other honorable mentions, Japone Arijuane and António Manna.
In the wake of the review issued by journalist José dos Remédios, “the novel revolves around friendly relationships between young people who have common dreams, however very difficult to achieve. Instead of being carried away by difficulties, Gertrudes (the protagonist) and her friends find ways to live the dreams always waiting to happen. From this point of view, Bata’s book is a novel with a very strong motivational weight, as it overturns the limitations responsible for containing people’s desires to reach different heights. Certainly, this was the author’s intention when writing this story very close to the current circumstances in Mozambique today.” It is worth reading this book by Agnaldo Bata, which introduces a new proposal for renewing our literature.
Agnaldo Bata – Dreams Of Ours
EXCERPT
A few hours after the sun came up, Pedro decided to move slightly away from the center of the village, to try to reflect on what was happening and the ideal place to do it that day was the old airstrip, which had been closed for many years. He sat on a rock and took off his hat from his head, keeping his serene gaze on the runway as if bowing.
From where he was sitting, his view allowed him to contemplate the runway in its entirety, from start to finish. How many kilometers long would that strip be and how wide? What was the last plane to take off from there? Pedro did not know how to answer. However, he was sure that his father would know and maybe that was why he felt more pain when looking at the runway, because despite the years of living with him, he had never given him leeway to listen to his daydreams about that mythical runway. Master Macossa, as his father was known in those lands, had spent his entire life taking care of that runway, since independence, when the Portuguese left with their small planes. It was his mission over the years to narrate the legendary landings he had witnessed as a traffic officer at the small aerodrome, in the then village of Macossa, as well as to keep the runway clean and in proper condition for a possib- le landing. Master Macossa said that, after Chimoio Airport, that was the most important in the whole province of Manica and that one day it would regain its lost glory.
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