Pepetela warns of Angolan class divide

Comparing social unrest and extreme poverty to a volcano about to erupt, writer and former education minister Artur Pestana, known by the pseudonym Pepetela, described the injustice of widespread poverty in one of the world's most resource-rich nations during a book presentation on June 18.

Angola, one of the foremost producers of oil in Africa, ended a long civil war in 2002 and has been working on economic improvement ever since. Though oil executives stay in luxurious hotel rooms costing four hundred dollars a night, much of the country's 16.5 million population lives without running water or electricity.

Pepetela's work, highly regarded throughout the region, has long explored this contradiction.

In one of his famous short stories, entitled "This Country is Great" Pepetela tells the story of a young boy who comes home running to tell his mother that oil was squirting out from his neighbour's back yard. The boy later discovers that the oil came from a leak in a nearby refinery and is disillusioned when he realises that many of the riches his country possess are out of reach to the majority of the population.

Pepetela's comments echo those of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has ruled the southwestern African nation for 30 years and is expected to run in the country's first post-war presidential poll later in the year. Dos Santos has pledged to build one million homes for the poor in four years at a cost of $50 billion.