Internationally acclaimed author and poet Mia Couto describes himself as an African, but his roots are in Europe.
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00:00Internationally acclaimed author and poet Mia Couto describes himself as an African,
00:05but his roots are in Europe. His Portuguese parents settled in Mozambique in 1953 after
00:11fleeing the dictatorial rule of Antonio Salazar. Couto was born two years later in the port city
00:17of Beira. My childhood was very happy, he tells the BBC. Behe points out that he was conscious
00:25of the fact that he was living in a colonial society, something that nobody had to explain
00:30to him because so visible were the borderlines between whites and blacks, between the poor and
00:35the rich. As a child, Couto was cripplingly shy, unable to speak up for himself in public or even
00:42at home. Instead, like his father who was also a poet and a journalist, he found solace in the
00:48written word. I invented something, a relationship with paper, and then behind that paper there was
00:55always someone I loved, someone that was listening to me, saying, you exist, he tells the BBC from
01:01his home in Mozambique's capital, Maputo, with a colourful painting and wooden carving on a rich,
01:07mustard-yellow wall in the background. Being of European origin, Couto related
01:13most easily to the black elite that existed in Mozambique under Portuguese colonial rule,
01:18the assimilados, those, in the racist language of the day, considered, civilised, enough to
01:24become Portuguese citizens. The writer counts himself as lucky to have played with the children
01:29of assimilados and to have learned some of their languages.