Sinopse:

Fifteen-year-old Kambili's world is circumscribed by the high walls and frangipani trees of her family compound. Her wealthy Catholic father, under whose shadow Kambili lives, while generous and politically active in the community, is repressive and fanatically religious at home.
When Nigeria begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili's father sends her and her brother away to stay with their aunt, a University professor, whose house is noisy and full of laughter. There, Kambili and her brother discover a life and love beyond the confines of their father's authority. The visit will lift the silence from their world and, in time, give rise to devotion and defiance that reveal themselves in profound and unexpected ways.
This is a book about the promise of freedom; about the blurred lines between childhood and adulthood; between love and hatred, between the old gods and the new.

Excertos:

"So when Papa did not see Jaja go to the altar that Palm Sunday when everything changed, he banged his leatherbound missal, with the red and green ribbons peeking out, down on the dining table when we got home. The table was glass, heavy glass. It shook, as did the palm fronds on it.
"Jaja, you did not go to communion," Papa said quietly, almost a question.
Jaja stared at the missal on the table as though he were addressing it. "The wafer gives me bad breath."
I stared at Jaja. Had something come loose in his head? Papa insisted we call it the host because "host" came close to capturing the essence, the sacredness, of Christ's body. "Wafer" was too secular, wafer was what one of Papa's factories made—chocolate wafer, banana wafer, what people bought their children to give them a treat better than biscuits."

"Papa sat down at the table and poured his tea from the china tea set with pink flowers on the edges. I waited for him to ask Jaja and me to take a sip, as he always did. A love sip, he called it, because you shared the little things you loved with the people you loved. Have a love sip, he would say, and Jaja would go first. Then I would hold the cup with both hands and raise it to my lips. One sip. The tea was always too hot, always burned my tongue, and if lunch was something peppery, my raw tongue suffered. But it didn't matter, because I knew that when the tea burned my tongue, it burned Papa's love into me. But Papa didn't say, "Have a love sip"; he didn't say anything as I watched him raise the cup to his lips."

A minha opinião:

Um livro marcante e poderoso.

A autora retratou na perfeição uma família nigeriana que tenta sobreviver a um golpe militar, ao mesmo que tempo que tenta sobreviver com os seus próprios segredos.

Toda a estória é contada pela jovem Kambili. É ela que nos vai revelando, aos poucos e de uma forma indirecta, os segredos que esta tradicional e profundamente religiosa família esconde. Sob a fachada de uma família perfeita se esconde um pai autoritário e religioso ao ponto do fanatismo; uma mãe reservada e dedicada mas que irá surpreender; um filho, Jaja, consciente das falhas graves desta família; e por fim, Kambili, a adolescente que tenta de todas as formas agradar a todos, especialmente ao seu exigente pai.

Toda a estrutura familiar começa lentamente a desmoronar-se quando, após um revoltante acto de violência, Kambili e o seu irmão vão para casa de uma tia. A mudança radical de ambiente familiar levanta dúvidas na mentalidade de ambos e revela os terríveis segredos que a fotografia de uma família perfeita esconde.

Este livro está escrito de uma forma simples o que torna a sua leitura bastante fácil, apesar do seu conteúdo ser quase acutilante. A brutalidade que se esconde debaixo de máscaras é por vezes, mais difícil de aceitar do que a violência clara e visível por todos. Acho que foi isto que me fez agarrar as páginas e indignar-me e revoltar-me com certas personagens e acontecimentos.

Um livro rico mas nada fácil de digerir.

7/10

Lido a 13 de Agosto de 2008