Transparent City

In a crumbling apartment block in the Angolan city of Luanda, families work, laugh, scheme, and get by. In the middle of it all is the melancholic Odonato, nostalgic for the country of his youth and searching for his lost son. As his hope drains away and as the city outside his doors changes beyond all recognition, Odonato’s flesh becomes transparent and his body increasingly weightless.

A captivating blend of magical realism, scathing political satire, tender comedy, and literary experimentation, Transparent City offers a gripping and joyful portrait of urban Africa quite unlike any before yet published in English, and places Ondjaki, indisputably, among the continent’s most accomplished writers

Transparent City revolves around the lives of the characters living in a dilapidated Luandan apartment block, one distinguished by an inexplicable waterflow through the first floor hallway. Ondjaki's tale is a satire on city life and the corruption of seemingly every public servant we encounter - with the possible exception of the grave digger - and the story is also steeped in magical realism so I could never be quite exactly how I was supposed to interpret particular events. I loved the apartment block setting which reminded me of such novels as The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany and Kissing In Manhattan by David Schickler, while its particularly Angolan vibe made Transparent City feel like a unique novel.