Creole paints a vivid and dramatic picture of a decadent social order in tatters. Extraordinary characters, real and fictional, look on as their world collapses.

In the late nineteenth century, Carlos Fradique Mendes, Portuguese writer and traveler, is as much at home in Lisbon as he is in Luanda or Rio de Janeiro, all part of the Portuguese-speaking Creole world. In Angola he falls helplessly in love with Ana Olimpia Vaz de Caminha, who was born a slave and yet becomes one of the country's richest women. This tale of romance, adventure and redemption concerns itself with the fortunes of the Creole bourgeoisie of Luanda as it struggles to preserve its influence in the decades between the end of the slave trade and the onset of modern Portuguese colonialism.