My Father's Wives, By José Eduardo Agualusa

In this spirited road novel by the Angolan winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (for The Book of Chameleons), a Lisbon-based film-maker criss-crosses southern Africa in search of the truth about her reputed biological father, a jazz virtuoso.

In parallel with Laurentina's quest, a frame-story gives us an author-figure and his partner on their own journey. With charm and colour, Agualusa celebrates the creole world of Portuguese Africa, while Daniel Hahn translates with a fitting snap and swing.