The violent history of Angola from the perspective of a woman in the refuge of home in Luanda: civil war, betrayal, corruption and decay of public order, but also humanity and solidarity. As the country goes through various political upheavals from colony to socialist republic to civil war to peace and capitalism, the world outside seeps into Ludo's life through snippets on the radio, voices from next door, glimpses of someone peeing on a balcony, or a man fleeing his pursuers. 

Portuguese-Angolan writer José Eduardo Agualusa is a literary trickster and a master storyteller who has found the perfect vehicle to examine his country’s troubled recent past.