Explanation of Nothingness

About the Book

About the Author

Ascêncio de Freitas is a Portuguese author born at a small seaside city in the north of Portugal, a place where most of the caravels sent out in the maritime discovery expeditions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were built and from where, in 1502, sailed the first Portuguese ships to catch codfish in the waters of what is now Canada. He lived thirty years of his life in Mozambique where, in a kind of almost always dangerous and adventurous style, he engaged in a number of different occupations ranging from big game hunter to mining prospector, journalist, salesman, lumber dealer and farmer, to ending his professional career as deputy executive of one of the most significant groups of companies in the country. A staunch supporter of independence for the Africans and conscientious anti-racist, he had active participation in the two wars fought in the country, the first, from 1964-1974, for independence, and the second, from 1977-1992, the most cruel, improperly referred to as civil war, in which over a million people lost their lives. For this reason, he did not publish any of his books for 28 years after the publication of his first few ones, of short stories. His particular individual diplomatic participation brought about the signing of the Roma Peace Accord in 1992. He does not subscribe to any political party or ideology and at one time even wrote that he is the president of a political party of which he is the only member. He has had fifteen books published (novels and short stories) in Mozambique and in Portugal and, at present, has another five ready for publication. Five of his books have been awarded the most prestigious Portuguese literary prizes, including the prize awarded by the Portuguese section of the International PEN Club in a year when José Saramago (Nobel Prize) and António Lobo Antunes (Nobel Prize nominee) also had books published. Some of his short stories have been included in anthologies of African stories in four different countries.