New Directions is proud to introduce the masterwork of Cape Verde"s greatest living writer, Germano Almeida: an ironic and original tragic-comedy from a new voice in African literature. Everyone in Cape Verde knows SeA±or da Silva. Successful entrepreneur, owner of the island"s first automobile, a most serious, upright, and self-made businessman, SeA±or da Silva is the local success story. Born an orphan, he never married, he never splurged?one good suit was good enough for him?and he never wandered from the straight and narrow. Or so everyone thought. But when SeA±or da Silva"s 387-page Last Will and Testament is read aloud?a marathon task on a hot afternoon which exhausts reader after reader?there"s eye-opening news, and not just for the smug nephew so certain of inheriting all SeA±or da Silva"s property. With his will, SeA±or da Silva leaves a memoir that is a touching web of elaborate self-deceptions. He desired so ardently to prosper, to be...