Sands of the Emperor

Award-winning author Mia Couto’s Sands of the Emperor trilogy begins with Woman of the Ashes—combining vivid folkloric prose with extensive historical research to give a spellbinding and unsettling account of war-torn Mozambique at the end of the nineteenth century.

As the Portuguese and Africans vie for conquest over the country, soldiers and civilians caught on both sides of the conflict struggle to survive, live, and love in a region haunted by violence.