cap verde

the madwoman of serrano

by dina salústio

translated by jethro soutar

THE MADWOMAN OF SERRANO by Dina Salústio (translated by the Portuguese by Jethro Soutar) is the first novel by a female author to be published in Cape Verde, and the first to be translated into English. Set in the isolated island village of Serrano, the novel is a story of contrasts, between men and women, beauty and destruction, magic and madness, wealth and poverty (of possessions and spirit), the rural and the urban. It also raises questions about ideas of madness, and what madness means when it is ascribed to a wise woman whose babbling may actually be prophecy.

The setting is full of generous descriptions and many of the characters are sympathetically described and brought to life. The scenes set in the village of Serrano are especially rich: “Serrano was turned in on itself, lost among trees and crags, allowed to breathe easily, half beautiful, half woman, half man,” but there is always the suggestion of something a little unsettled or rotten at its core, “It was a solid place too, no ordinary wind could blow it over, and its weak points, though it had them like everywhere else, went mostly undetected. Few visitors noticed the dirt beneath its skin and rocks at the depth of its soul.”

The only thing that disrupted the story was the structure of the book. The story is told from multiple perspectives and hops through both place and time and I did find myself getting a bit confused and having to push through parts of the book to try and reestablish where I was in Salústio’s fictional world.

In an almost prologue, the first chapter opens with a broad overview of the coming plot, as characters and events are introduced by an omniscient voice, who tells the reader: “This is the story of Serrano…” then later, “This is the story of Serrano and Jerónimo, but also of Genoveva,…” and “It is also the story of a young woman…” This overview is interspersed with the myths and legends and past events that have made Serrano the town it is, much of which includes magical, fantastical happenings, which are presented as normal life within this extraordinary place. The fact that this is a preview of the coming events isn’t really made clear, and then chapter two opens in the city, in the present modern world, which we see from the perspective of Filipa, Jerónimo’s grown daughter. We then return to Serrano and to the past, and hop back and forth through different perspectives. The scenes set in Serrano were the most clear to me and I enjoyed the parts of the story recounted by Jerónimo, a kind male character who takes gentle care of his children, his land, and his life, but otherwise I found the effort required to stay in the story distracted from the story itself.

Dina Salústio was born on the island of Santo Antão, Cape Verde in 1941. She has worked as a teacher, a social assistant, and a journalist, in Portugal, Angola, and Cape Verde. She is the author of a number of short story collections and three novels, including A Louca de Serrano (The Madwoman of Serrano), the first novel by a female author to be published in Cape Verde, and the first to be translated into English.