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Cabo Verde

The covers of Vengeance Is Mine, Under Our Skin, Negras, Rotten Evidence, MA, Owlish, The Love...

The Best Books We Read in 2023—And What We’re Looking Forward to in 2024

By Words Without Borders

WWB staff members share their favorite translated books of the year and the titles they’re most looking forward to in 2024.

A painting of a street scene in sixteenth-century Lisbon

Chafariz d’el Rey, c. 1570-80, Anonymous Flemish painting, in the Berardo collection, Lisbon, Portugal

A Majestic Knight Rides Past

By Joaquim Arena

Could a Black man really have become a knight of the Order of Santiago?

Translated from Portuguese by Jethro Soutar

Global Blackness: Black Writers in Translation

By Eric M. B. Becker

Engaging “the evolving dialogue that broadens definitions of global Blackness.”

See-the-Sea

By Dina Salústio

Are all of us accidents wandering through other people’s lives?

Translated from Portuguese by Nina Perrotta

Islands Running across the Globe

By Manuel Brito-Semedo

Right from the start, Cabo Verdean concepts of identity and individuality were defined by this mixed reality: the African and the European, in all their diverse and contrasting characteristics.

Translated from Portuguese by Jethro Soutar

On Beginnings

By Filinto Elísio

Inert stone, atomic, / nuclear before life.

Translated from Portuguese by Jethro Soutar

Multilingual

A Form of African Identity

By Germano Almeida

It was only very gradually that we came to understand that the Europeans, out of malice or simple ignorance, had instilled in us our reluctance to accept our condition as Africans.

Translated from Portuguese by Stephen Henighan

Cabo Verde Is the Center of the World

By Germano Almeida

In those days the island of Boa Vista was the whole world.

Translated from Portuguese by Stephen Henighan

Lisbon – 1971

By Arménio Vieira

In point of fact, Lisbon was not waiting there [to greet us.

Translated from Portuguese by Eric M. B. Becker & Shook

Caviar, Champagne, and Fantasy

By Arménio Vieira

The Esplanada, thick with the scent of fragrant [DDT

Translated from Portuguese by Eric M. B. Becker & Shook

Song for My Father

By Filinto Elísio

The music played / on Apollo 11, it turned out, was “Georgia / On My Mind,” sung by Ray Charles.

Translated from Portuguese by Jethro Soutar

Multilingual

The Last Judgment

By Fátima Bettencourt

I was overcome by the unshakeable conviction that it was the end of the world.

Translated from Portuguese by Anna Kushner

Old Isidoro

By Luís Romano

As soon as he came around the bend at Passo Preto, he raised his pistol and fired into the air.

Translated from Cabo Verdean (Santo Antão Dialect) by Jeff Hessney

Multimedia

The Best Seller

By Germano Almeida

Ceremonious, humble, weighing each word, he extended almost fearfully a timid hand.

Translated from Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers

The Best Seller

By Germano Almeida

Rather formal, modest, weighing every word, almost fearful, he held his hand out to me hesitantly.

Translated from Portuguese by Daniel Hahn