The Last Will and Testament of Senhor Da Silva Araujo

Known as a meticulous and forthright, if somewhat peculiar, businessman in life, Sr. Da Silva emerges as a bona fide eccentric in death after the exhausting reading of his 387-page, memoirlike will. The Last Will and Testament of Senhor da Silva Araujo by Germano Almeida reveals the ostensibly chaste old man's secret tryst with a housekeeper-and the identity of the couple's unsuspecting progeny-before his stunned nephew and heir-apparent and the entire Cape Verdean community. Almeida's refreshing voice and playful irony ring clearly in this translation from the Portuguese by Sheila Glaser.