Couto and Chiziane at Turin book fair.

Mozambican authors Mia Couto and Paulina Chiziane will be in Italy for the annual Turin international book fair 4-8 May 2006, which this year has a special focus on the Portuguese language. Couto and Chiziane will be among a number of writers from Portuguese-speaking countries who will present and discuss their work.

Born in the port city of Beira to Portuguese immigrants, Couto worked as director of Mozambique news agency AIM and editor in chief of the newspapers Tiempo and Notcias de Maputo before resigning in 1985 to study biology. Today he lives in Maputo and works as an environmental biologist at the Limpopo Transfrontier Park on the border with South Africa and Zimbabwe. His numerous books include Under the Frangipani (1996) and Last Flight of the Flamingo, with which he rose to international fame in 2000.

Novelist and short-story writer Chiziane was born in Manjacaze in southern Mozambique and studied at Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo. Her novel Niketche a story of polygamy (2002) won the first edition of the national Jos Craveirinha prize together with Coutos A River Called Time and a House called Land in 2003.