Excerpt from Woman of the Ashes by David Brookshaw, Mia Couto, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

But now, some years after the peace had begun, the intruders returned, as menacing and arrogant as ever. Confirming all our old fears, those men surrounded my mother with the strange intoxication felt by adolescent boys simply because they are in a pack. Though her spine tingled with fear, Chikazi bore her load of water with vigor and elegance. She maintained her dignity in the face of the strangers and their threat. The soldiers felt insulted and were propelled ever more strongly by a desire to humiliate her. Suddenly, they knocked the pot from her head and whooped with glee when it hit the ground and shattered. And they laughed when they saw the woman's slender body drenched with water. After that, the soldiers required no effort to tear at her clothes, which were now transparent and clung to her skin.

Don't hurt me, she begged. I'm pregnant.

Pregnant? At your age?

They saw the little bump under her clothes, where she was hiding the fish she had been given. And, once again, they spat their doubt into her face: Pregnant? You? How many months?

I'm twenty years pregnant.

That's what she felt like saying: That her children had never left her body. That she was harboring all five of her children. But she contained herself. What she did instead was feel around for the fish under her clothes. The soldiers stood watching her explore the secret parts of her body under her capulana. Unnoticed by any of them, she grabbed the spiny dorsal fin of the fish and used it to tear her wrist. She waited for the blood to flow and then opened her legs, as if she were giving birth. Gradually, she pulled the fish from under her clothes, as if it were emerging from her insides. Then she lifted the fish up in her blood-soaked arms and announced:

Here is my child! My little boy is born!

The VaNguni soldiers stepped back in horror. This was no ordinary woman. She was a noyi, a witch. And there was no more sinister offspring she could have produced. A fish, for these occupying soldiers, was a taboo creature. And as if the animal weren't enough, its appearance was compounded at the same moment by the worst of all impurities: the blood of a woman, the filth that soiled the universe. The thick, dark stickiness ran down her legs and stained the soil around her.

When they were told about this episode, the invading hordes were disturbed. It was said that many soldiers deserted, fearing the power of the witch who gave birth to fishes.

* * *

And so it was with ripped clothes and shredded soul that my mother, Chikazi Makwakwa, arrived back home around noon. At the door, she recounted what had happened, neither weeping nor displaying any emotion. Blood dripped from her wrist as if her tale were being spelled out with every drop. My father and I listened to her, unsure how to react. As she finished her story and washed her hands, Mother muttered in a voice that was unrecognizable:

Something must be done.

My father, Katini Nsambe, frowned and argued: The best way to respond would be to remain calm and quiet. We were a nation under occupation, and it would be better if we remained unnoticed. We VaChopi had lost the land that was ours, the land of our forefathers. Before long, the invaders would be strutting through our cemetery, where we buried our placentas and our stars.

Mother reacted forcefully: It's a mole that lives in darkness.

My father shook his head and retorted in an undertone: I like the dark. You don't notice the world's defects in the dark. A mole is what I always wanted to be. When it comes to how the world is, all we can do is give thanks to God that we are blind.

Stunned, Mother gave a loud sigh while she bent over the fire in order to stir the ushua. She moistened the tip of her finger, pretending she was testing the heat of the saucepan.

Excerpted from Woman of the Ashes by Mia Couto. Copyright © 2018 by Mia Couto. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.