O Assobiador (The Whistler)

There are some books that are surprising because they are so completely unexpected - not in their appearance, but in their method. O Assobiador (The Whistler) is one such book. As a product of Angola, a country riven by civil war and its after effects for the past 30 years, a novel of such laughter and unmitigated hope comes as a welcome shock. The story is set in an African village, far from the sea, with a church on one side, a smiling baobab tree on the other and filled with inhabitants who treat their many donkeys as Hindus treat cows.