Sands of the emperor

By

Mia Couto

Direction

Victor de Oliveira

Performed by

Elliot Alex, Isabelle Cagnat, Horácio Guiamba, Bruno Huca, Ana Magaia, Eunice Mandlate, Josefina Massango, Miguel Moreira, Sofaida Moyane, Miguel Nunes, Lucrécia Paco, Daniel Pinto, Mario Santos, Klemente Tsamba

Adapted from the novel by Mozambican author Mia Couto, Sands of the emperor is a celebration of the invaluable nature of free-flowing borders and multiple identities. A transgressive love story set in the heart of colonial Africa.

Sand of the emperor takes us on a personal journey into 19^th-century Africa with a love story told in two tales:  that of Germano, a Portuguese soldier exiled to Mozambique, and that of Imani, his young Mozambican interpreter. In the final years of emperor Ngungunyane’s rule, these two individuals, from two worlds which could not be further apart, drift along a river. Their chaotic, daring adventure brings them face to face with the reality of the war.

Born in Mozambique in 1971, the grandson of colonists and colonised people, director Victor de Oliveira is a product of this story of alliances and adversity. With this stage adaptation of Mia Couto’s novel, Oliviera and his band of performers create an impressive show that merges images of a faraway, mysterious Africa with those of a thoroughly modern continent. A theatrical fresco that courts prosperity and decline, pride and humiliation, despair and resilience.