The book of chameleons was recommended to me by my friend Ruth.... a woman whose opinions I respect even though we don't always agree. This time we do. I was bowled over.

As the name implies, (and anyway, the secret is revealed on the back cover) the narrator of this strange and entrancing tale is a lizard. The lizard lives in the house of Feliz Ventura, an albino who specializes in creating a new past for people who have acquired a little bit of money and now wish to invent some respected ancestors, complete with sepia photographs of their "fore-fathers" who, having been skillfully invented by Felix, are all descendants from the Portuguese nobility who came as conquerors and colonists in previous centuries.

The lizard is a silent witness to the conversation between the albino and a mysterious visitor who declines even to give his name, instead insisting that Felix should give him a new one to go with his new past. Well, not quite silent, since this type of lizard has a laugh which sounds disturbingly human. The mysterious visitor admits only to being a photographer specializing in documenting wars around the world. He insists on being given an Angolan identity, and the albino points out that this is implausible.

-Why? asks the visitor.

-Well, because you are white. The albino tells him.

-Nonsense, you are much whiter than I am.

-No, no. I am black. The albino argues indignantly.

The plot thickens with the arrival of two other characters... the girl Lucia, who is also a photographer, but who only photographs sky and light in its different hues and moods, and an old tramp who lives below ground, and emerges from a man-hole to scavenge for something to eat.

It is a short work, but with a pleasing architecture, as slowly the drama unfolds, and we begin to understand the relationships of all these characters to one another. It is beautifully written and translated. I found it enjoyable, stimulating and refreshing.