AARP - Segunda Juventud - Invented Pasts: The Book of Chameleons

Invented Pasts
Angolan writer José Eduardo Agualusa's The Book of Chameleons explores issues of identity as purchased pasts and reality collide.

By Carlos J. Queirós
Summer 2008

Interview with José Eduardo Agualusa (Summer 2008)

Interview with Ángeles Mastretta (Spring 2008)
Not long ago, José Eduardo Agualusa dreamt of an albino who said: "My name is Félix Ventura, and I sell pasts to the nouveaux riches." The next morning, Agualusa began The Book of Chameleons, his sixth novel.

The book's crisp language carries us through interrelated events in the lives of Ventura, two photographers, a bureaucrat, and a vagrant. We soon learn that the narrator is a gecko witnessing Angola's new bourgeoisie as it grapples with freshly purchased pasts.

"Identity is something you construct," says Agualusa. When the real past intrudes, the characters face a bewildering murder.

In an exclusive interview, José Eduardo Agualusa discusses identity and Jorge Luis Borges, his inspiration for The Book of Chameleons, here.

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