The Cartographer of Absences and Lázár: two Books worth Reading
Mia Couto’s The Cartographer of Absences and Nelio Biedermann’s Lázár have rarely been discussed together before. They don’t differ only in their setting, with Lázár set in Habsburg Hungary and The Cartographer of Absences on the Mozambican coast. Mia Couto and Nelio Biedermann became celebrities in their respective cultures and bubbles, but they are yet to be discovered by an international mainstream audience.
Content Warning
You possibly don’t want to read the books if you are sensitive or traumatized by violence, abuse, or injustice. Then again, you might want to read them anyway. While not every victim gets justice or redemption, some do. Altogether, both books describe blatant and brutal incidents, but are based on or inspired by actual history, without reveling in the details like crime fiction often does.
Without spoiling any more specific details, let me just add that both books contain several reasons to make you laugh, cry, or want to stop reading.
Beneath the Cover
I noticed that Lázár uses the same cover for different translations, while The Cartographer of Absences turns into the cartographer of forgetting in German, and both German and English covers feature rather abstract and sombre photographs, unlike the strikingly colorful Portuguese versions.
Nelio Biedermann’s Lázár reads more like a classic novel, while Mia Couto is more experimental, mixing prose with poems, interviews, and bureaucratic reporting. Couto also blends African Bantu language elements into his Mozambican Portuguese to help create a new postcolonial culture. That’s not completely lost in translation.
Both books explore similar topics: inherited guilt and damage. The ambiguous role of privileged people in changing societies. Why people often prefer to forget instead of coming to terms with the past. Both mix facts with fiction and some slightly surreal aspects.
Lázár, an Author and his Family
Viele Familiengeschichten lassen sich nur bis zu den eigenen Großeltern zurückverfolgen. Vielleicht sind Generationen überspannende Familiensagas deshalb so spannend. Dem jungen Autor Nelio Biedermann scheint es gelungen, die Lebensgeschichte seiner Urgroßeltern und deren Vorfahren als persönliche Chronik des 20. Jahrhunderts in Ungarn zu erzählen. Wo genau seine eigene Geschichte weitergeht, bleibt im Dunkeln.
Many words have been said and written about the novel Lázár by European intellectuals. Maybe too much already. Lázár has been lauded and criticized, also for not telling enough. When that feels like something is missing or a chapter is ending too soon, then that’s mirroring the historic disruptions that actually happened. We might wonder about quirky subplots and eerie sadness before, but I can only guess that’s either inspired by actual family history or similar stories about other landed gentry. I still think it makes sense altogether somehow, and it makes Lázár the easier read, despite its disturbing subject.
Absences and Magical Realism
The Cartographer of Absences is more thoughtful and spans a shorter time range overall, focusing on one moment in time and what happened before, around, and after. In his semi-fictional work, Couto seeks a critical view of his own role as a child of a white colonist family naively trying to connect with the local domestic workers, neighbors and relatives. His story ends with some kind of a resolution. Mixing facts and imagination, Couto hints at possible stories and alternative futures beyond the official historiography and imagination.
Unearthing Family Secrets
In Lázár, by contrast, the book’s open ending resists this kind of closure. Still, like Mia Couto, Nelio Biedermann draws on family history and lived memory as material for fiction.
Both the Holocaust in Europe and colonial massacres in Africa are historically documented; for example, Jorge Ribeiro’s Inhaminga – O último massacre presents the massacre of Inhaminga as a documented episode of Portuguese colonial violence in Mozambique.
The books don’t quote and repeat documented atrocities, but they bring history to life in a way that textbooks can’t, at least not for us non-academic readers.
Unearthing family secrets is one thing, dealing with them as an author is another. Both books also have something emotional to tell us right now. Even more so if we are or know people traumatised by war, expulsion and collective guilt. Lázár also reminded me of the stories that my grandparents told me, and of the doubts that linger with the listener, even when you did ask them questions. What was true, how much did they know, and what mattered?
Filling in the Blanks of History
We are often left with no choice but to piece together and elaborate upon the fragmentary accounts of elderly survivors, fully aware that the result does not necessarily correspond to the truth. Aware also that our critical engagement within the framework of our privilege doesn’t directly make us accomplices but still profiteers who benefit from injustice. In the end, what remains above all is a sense of individual powerlessness.
I think you should definitely read Lázár, especially when your family has lived in Central Europe in the 20th century. First sweeping one’s own doorstep also helps to cultivate a sense of understanding, curiosity, and detachment. That may then help us look beyond the matters reported in the news.
People are important, also those who don’t make it into world history.
Love, Tenderness, and Satirical Bureaucratic Archives
Mia Couto and Nelio Biedermann both complement their serious subjects with personal, loving, and funny details, making fun of self-importance and acting despite human weaknesses. Lázár’s German language teacher and Diogo’s police officer are just two comical examples that reduce the shift in narrative perspective to absurdity.
A touching and humorous detail is also the description of how the intellectual father attempts to repair his car.
And the love stories might be unconvincing, but they also contain comical aspects.
Even if you know history and have an inkling of how the story continues, there’s a reason to keep on reading.
Watching from a Distance
I hope this post doesn’t say more about me than about the books. But if it does, let me reveal my perspective. Maybe I can inspire others in a similar situation to discover unlikely books with an open mind and read obvious recommendations more critically.
Reading The Cartographer of Absences reminded me of reading The Tiny Things are Heavier before. I can hardly imagine what life looks like in Lagos, Beira, or Inhaminga. Reading about Sonny, Diogo, and the Lázár family recreates an imaginary world inspired by reality and by the protagonists’ experiences, mixed with my own background, which is much closer to Lázár in Europe than to Diogo in Africa.
I’m also still unsure whether my text makes a good read, but I’m sure some potential readers liked one of the books but haven’t heard about the other one yet.
