Interview with José Eduardo Agualusa

Q:

Why did you write The Book of Chameleons? How long did it take?

A:

One night I dreamt of an albino. He introduced himself, saying to me: “My name’s Félix Ventura, and I sell pasts to the nouveaux riche.” The next morning I wrote a story in which the narrator—myself—met Félix Ventura on vacation in a Berlin bar. The story was published in a Portuguese magazine and met with some success. I realized that the character deserved a longer narrative. But apart from a little bit of research into Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges’s life—because the recollections of the narrator’s first life correspond to fragments of Borges’s life—this book is entirely fictional. It didn’t require much research and I wrote it in a few months.

Q:

The book is narrated from the point of view of a gecko whose memories correspond to parts of Borges’s past. The book also begins with a quote from Borges. Why did you decide to narrate from this point of view? Can you explain the influence Borges and others have had on your work?

A:

I’ve been greatly influenced by Latin American literature, and in a certain sense I’m a product of that literature: Borges, but also [Gabriel] García Márquez, [Mario] Vargas Llosa, Jorge Amado, and Rubem Fonseca. The thing that most interests me about Borges is not the fantastical but the absurd. Both the fantastical and the absurd are present in day-to-day life in Angola. They’re firmly set in reality.

Q:

How would you describe this novel?

A:

It’s a novel about the construction of memory and memory’s traps. It takes place in Angola, a young country recently exiting a long civil war and a Marxist regime, where people are seeking not just a collective identity but also in many cases a new past with which they can face their future. And out of this context emerges the figure of a man, an old second-hand-book dealer, who dedicates himself to creating pasts for the emerging bourgeoisie.

Q:

At various points in the novel, there’s the suggestion that the writing of history is also fiction. Do you believe this?

A:

This has been the case in many countries, and especially in Angola. A good part of Angola’s official history that’s been taught in schools since independence is complete fiction—created indeed by writers of a certain renown—and today this is being challenged by historians.

Q:

How important was the setting of Angola to The Book of Chameleons?

A:

There are many countries—probably all of them—in which a seller of pasts could prosper. The Brazilians, for example, are making a film based on the book but whose plot takes place in Rio de Janeiro. Still, I do think that Luanda offers better conditions for this sort of activity.

Q:

You were born in Huambo, Angola, in 1960, and now divide your time between Africa, Brazil, and Portugal. How do these three locations—with such intertwined pasts—fuel your work and sense of identity?

A:

Identity is something you construct along the way. As the book suggests, we are what we remember. We are everything we experience in life. Dividing my time between these three countries has transformed me. My books are marked by all these places.